Category: Spray Nozzles

Stop Starving Your Tools: How to Beat Pressure Drop in Compressed Air Systems

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

If you’ve ever noticed your pneumatic tools losing their “punch” or your machines throwing low-pressure faults, you’re likely dealing with the silent thief of industrial efficiency: pressure drop.

Pressure drop is the reduction in air pressure from the compressor discharge to the actual point of use. It’s not just a performance issue; it’s an expensive energy drain. Most facilities try to fix it by cranking up the compressor pressure, which is like trying to fix a leaky garden hose by turning the spigot up—it just wastes more energy and stresses the system.

Here is how to tackle it and how EXAIR products help you win the fight.

1. Size Matters (The Piping Dilemma)

The most common cause of pressure drop is undersized piping. Think of your compressed air system like a highway; if you try to cram 1,000 cars into one lane, traffic slows down.

  • The Fix: Always size your main headers and distribution lines for the maximum potential flow, not just your current average. Using a “loop” system instead of a single “dead-end” header allows air to flow in two directions to reach a high-demand tool, effectively doubling the capacity of the pipe.

2. Smooth Out the “Plumbing”

Every elbow, tee, and valve creates friction. Standard plumbing fittings often have sharp turns that create turbulence, slowing down the air.

  • The Fix: Minimize the use of 90-degree elbows where possible (use long-radius sweeps instead) and ensure you aren’t using restrictive, undersized quick-connect couplings at the tool.

3. Eliminate the “Spiky” Demand

Large, intermittent air consumers can cause the pressure in the entire line to “sag.”

  • The Fix: Use a receiver tank (surge tank) near the point of high demand. This acts as a local battery, providing the necessary volume instantly without pulling from the main header and causing a system-wide drop.

How EXAIR Combats Pressure Drop

EXAIR is built on the philosophy of “doing more with less.” Our products are engineered specifically to maximize force while minimizing air consumption, which is the most effective way to reduce pressure drop at the end of the line.

Engineered Super Air Nozzles

EXAIR Nozzles

Standard “open pipe” blowoffs are air hogs. They create massive localized pressure drops because they dump huge volumes of air inefficiently. EXAIR Super Air Nozzles use a small amount of compressed air to entrain large volumes of surrounding “free” room air.

  • The Result: You get high-velocity discharge with significantly lower compressed air demand, keeping the pressure stable for the rest of your tools.

Digital Flowmeters

You can’t fix what you can’t measure. EXAIR Digital Flowmeters allow you to see exactly where the air is going in real-time. By monitoring different zones of your plant, you can pinpoint exactly which branch or machine is causing the pressure drop, making it easy to identify leaks or bottlenecks.

Precise Pressure Regulators

Using more pressure than a process requires (artificial demand) is a leading cause of system-wide drops. EXAIR Pressure Regulators ensure that each application gets exactly the PSI it needs and nothing more. By lowering the pressure at the point of use to the minimum required, you preserve the “headroom” in your main lines.

The Bottom Line, combating pressure drop is about velocity and volume. By optimizing your piping layout and switching to high-efficiency end-use products like our intelligent, point-of-use compressed air products, you stop starving your tools and start saving on your electric bill.

If you’re ready to stop turning up the compressor, and start fixing the flow, give us a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Banner image: Money-Burn-Gunjan-Pixaby

Buy 1, Get 40 Free

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Buy one, get one free is a phrase many of us are familiar with. Most of the time it is a good thing; we all like free stuff. What would you say to buy one, get 30 free? Or even 40 free? That’s not far off how our Air Knives perform. They entrain large volumes of ambient air, so for every 1 SCFM of compressed air you are paying for, you are getting 30–40 SCFM of additional free ambient entrained air.

So how are our Air Knives able to do this? We explain this phenomenon in more detail in this blog here, but in summary, a Super Air Knife takes advantage of the Venturi Effect. Named after Giovanni Venturi, who found out that when you increase the speed of a fluid through an orifice, the surrounding fluid will move along with it. This creates a region of low pressure, and the faster the speed, the lower the pressure. With low pressure, the air around rushes in to fill that gap and join the airstream. The quantity of ambient air that gets ‘pulled’ into the airstream is entrained air, or free air.

The engineered surface of the Super Air Knife is designed to minimize as much loss in air speed as possible, which maximizes the amount of free air that is being entrained. The ratio between free air and compressed air used is called the amplification ratio. Super Air Knives have an amplification ratio of 40:1, with our Standard Air Knives having an amplification ratio of 30:1. For comparison, a pipe with holes drilled will have an amplification ratio of between 2:1 and 5:1. As you can see, with a Super Air Knife you are getting a much better deal on your compressed air usage.

This additional free air adds more mass, which allows the Super Air Knife to do more work. You will get a harder hitting force than a comparable product while using less compressed air. This makes Super Air Knives especially good for cooling and drying applications, where moving large volumes of air is ideal.

EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products such as (left to right) the Air Wipe, Super Air Knife, Super Air Nozzle, and Air Amplifier are engineered to entrain enormous amounts of air from the surrounding environment.

It’s not just our Air Knives that take advantage of the Venturi effect to produce large amplification ratios. Many of our products are designed with efficiency in mind, including our Air Amplifiers, Air Wipes, and Air Nozzles and Jets, to name a few. If you would like to discuss how an EXAIR engineered compressed air product can amplify your process, then give us a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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HollowStream Spray Nozzles

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

At EXAIR we are known for our intelligent compressed air products. We’ve written many blogs on the benefits of our quiet and efficient compressed air products. We also have a handful of products that don’t use compressed air. Our  HollowStream™ Cone Liquid Nozzles are one such product.

As the name would suggest, the HollowStream™ Cone Liquid Nozzles produce a hollow cone of liquid, creating a ring around the target. This will reduce the liquid usage as compared to the OmniStream™ Cone Liquid Nozzles.  They are available in NPT female threads in 1/8″, 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ sizes with a variety of liquid flow rates.

When fluid is supplied into the body, a swirling action is created within the vortex chamber. This vortex is what creates the cone pattern. Then the precision orifice of the nozzle breaks this surface tension of the liquid, exiting the nozzle with the hollow ring pattern. Compared to our Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles, these nozzles generate more liquid volume and produce a coarser spray pattern. They can achieve flow rates ranging from 0.06 GPM and up to 14.00 GPM.

Diagram illustrating airflow in a vortex tube, showing a spiral airflow pattern directed toward the exit.

They are all made of 303 stainless steel with a vaneless design to help resist clogging, making them a great option for slurries, or liquids containing particulate. They can handle 250 PSIG of liquid pressure and operate at temperatures up to 800°F. And due to the fact that they only require pressurized liquid, and not an additional source of compressed air, they are easy to plumb, and are suited for applications where there may be space constraints.

Some common applications include cooling, cleaning, washing, rinsing and dust suppression. As long as you know the spray pattern you are looking to achieve, or the flow rate you want to maintain, our performance tables in our catalog and website make it easy to make your selection.

A table detailing FullStream Cone Nozzles, including columns for inlet connection, model, capacity, max free passage, flow rate in GPM and LPM at various psi levels, and spray angle measurements.

If you would like to discuss your spray application, and how EXAIR’s products can save you money, then give us a call!

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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External Mix Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles For High Flows, High Viscosity

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

If you’re just looking to spray water or just about any water-like liquid, you’ve got plenty of options…among them, any EXAIR Atomizing Spray Nozzle. We’d just need to find the one with the flow rate and pattern size & shape you’re looking for. That’s something we can handle in a short phone call, or if you’re a control freak, do-it-yourself-er like me, you can use the spec sheets in our Atomizing Spray Nozzles catalog section.

For applications involving liquids with higher viscosity or suspended solids, we’re going to look at our External Mix Air Atomizing Spray Nozzles. Internal Mix models are limited to liquid viscosity of 300cP or less, and you can’t use Siphon Feds for liquids with higher than 200cP viscosity. While we don’t publish a maximum viscosity for the External Mix models, we have customers who successfully use them with 800cP viscosity liquids. They also have larger internal passages for superior performance with suspended solids.

Two of my favorite examples of applications involving these elements come from the food industry — the snack food sector, specifically. The first one is from a company that makes thin, light crackers called ‘crisps’ that come in different flavors, achieved by coating them with a variety of seasonings. To make the seasonings stick, they needed to spray a light coating of oil onto the surface of the crisps, immediately prior to sprinkling the seasoning onto them, and then baking it in. And they called EXAIR for help in selecting the right Spray Nozzle.

We started our selection of the External Mix line, not only because of the viscosity of the oil (it WAS close to 300cP, which ruled out Siphon Feds, and was close to the upper limit of the Internal Mix models) but also because, with an External Mix, the liquid supply pressure ONLY affects the liquid flow rate, and the air supply pressure ONLY affects the pattern size. So, since they had a VERY specific volume of oil to apply to each crisp, they could set the liquid supply pressure accordingly, and use the air supply pressure to spread it evenly & consistently onto each piece. We know it worked because they sent us a video of it:

Model EF9040SS 14.42 GPH 1/8 NPT No Drip External Mix Narrow Angle Flat Fan Atomizing Spray Nozzle

The other one came from a food production facility as well — this time, from a bakery that wanted to spray oil with a suspension of cheese powder onto dough before baking it. And the reason that the External Mix models are best for high viscosity liquids is the same reason they’re best for liquids with suspended solids. Namely, the liquid doesn’t have to go through a cavity between the Liquid & Air Caps where resistance to flow, either from viscosity or particulate, could cause problems. Since the dough was on a 12″ wide chain conveyor, we specified a Model EB1030SS 14 GPH 1/4 NPT External Mix Wide Angle Flat Fan Pattern Atomizing Spray Nozzle. It’s a fairly continuous run, so they didn’t need (or want) the No-Drip feature to turn the spray on & off. They simply shut the pump and the compressed air off when they’re done making the cheesy dough.

External Mix Atomizing Nozzles are ideal for higher viscosity liquids, and those with suspended solids.

And now…I’m hungry! But seriously, if you need to spray liquid of any kind, EXAIR probably has a Spray Nozzle on the shelf for that…give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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