Tag: 1100 Super Air Nozzle

Aluminum Smelting: Cooling the Hot Spots!

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Aluminum smelting is an important process to change alumina ore into aluminum, a lightweight metal.  This process uses high heat for a period of time to separate the oxygen from the alumina.  The temperature can reach over 1000oF (538oC) to cause this separation.  As a reference, two pounds (0.9 Kg) of alumina ore is needed to make one pound (0.45 Kg) of aluminum.  Inside the ovens and exhaust ducts, they are lined with a cement brick to contain the heat and fumes.  Over time, the brick can get weak and have hot spots.  Once the brick is compromised, the system has to be shut down for days to replace the brick.  This is an expensive process and time-consuming.  To help reduce the hot spots and extend the life of the brick, the smelting company was using ¼” copper tubes to blow compressed air to reduce the heat.  This was costing the company a lot of money to operate; so, they contacted EXAIR for a better solution.     

They may be inefficient, but they sure are loud…

EXAIR has been manufacturing intelligent compressed air products since 1983.  And one thing that we know how to do is to save money on compressed air blow-off applications.  For this company above, they had 90 open pipes throughout their plant.  I was able to do a quick calculation for this customer to compare the copper tube to a Super Air Nozzle.  A ¼” copper tube will use roughly 33 SCFM (935 SLPM) of compressed air at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar).  As a replacement nozzle in a hot area, EXAIR recommended a model 1100SS Super Air Nozzle which will use 14 SCFM (396 SLPM) at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar).  With a simple connection, they could mount the ¼” NPT Super Air Nozzle at the end of each tube.  With the cost to make compressed air at $0.25/1,000 ft3, we can calculate the air savings.    

33 SCFM (copper tube) – 14 SCFM (Model 1100) = 19 SCFM savings

The operation for the smelting plant was 24 hours and 7 days a week.  The amount of savings is as follows:

19 ft3/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 7 days/week * $0.25/1,000 ft3 = $47.88 savings per week per nozzle.

Since they have 90 nozzles, this would save them $4,309.20 each week! 

How can we do this?  With cooling capacities, it is dependent on the mass of air that can be moved.  With our Super Air Nozzles, we are near an amplification ratio of 25:1.  This means that for every one part of compressed air, we can entrain 25 parts of ambient air.  Also, with our Super Air Nozzles, we can generate a laminar air flow which has a velocity profile that has the air moving in the same direction.  An open pipe has turbulent flow, which means that the velocity is traveling in different directions and not working together.  And the amplification ratio is very low.  I did a demonstration to illustrate this effect here: Video Blog: Laminar and Turbulent Flows.  The large volume of air creates good cooling without using too much compressed air to reduce the hot spot temperatures.  In keeping the temperature under control, they could continue operations and lessen the concern for untimely shut-downs and costly maintenance.

By using air to cool, you can do it safely and efficiently.  As a benefit, the Super Air Nozzles reduced the noise level as well.  Saving a lot of money; having an effective way to reduce stress on the cement bricks; and reducing the noise nuisance were great replacements for this company.  If you would like to speak about cooling applications, you can contact an Application Engineer; even something as large as a smelting oven.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Blow Off Systems for the “W”

Published on by bdwagesLeave a comment
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Many times we have tendencies to overcomplicate things. I remember a time when I was visiting my sister in Phoenix, and she was making a fancy 3D Scooby-Doo cake for my nephew’s 4th or 5th, and she needed the brown icing. Now when decorating these cakes, the common practice is to make white icing and use food coloring to make all of the other colors you need. She left that morning around 10:00 to look for brown food coloring. Around noon she called to tell us that she could not find brown food coloring at any store on this side of town, and was driving to the far side of the city to look at those stores. I asked her why she couldn’t just use chocolate icing, and she was having no part of it. She was so laser focused on her solution that she couldn’t hear that that chocolate icing is also brown… Fast forward to 6:30 PM, and she comes walking through the door frustrated and exhausted from her day of going store to store all over the large city looking for the elusive brown food coloring. As you can probably guess, she had chocolate icing with her because it finally hit her that the chocolate icing is brown… . The cake turned out amazing, and the lesson was learned.

So, why this story? I feel that in life and in business we sometimes leave our blinders on and become laser focused on one certain way of doing something. We know that the way we se it will work, and think that we know best, and we are going to make it happen exactly how it is playing out in our head. No other way seems possible, and when someone offers up a simpler solution, our immediate thought is “it can’t be that simple”, or “if it’s that simple of a solution, there is no way it could work”. Have you ever said these things? As an application engineer, I take a lot of calls from people that are much smarter than me with grandiose plans. Many times the problem they need to solve, is much simpler than the solution they have in mind. I’ve seen elaborate plans, that probably took hours if not days to develop, come down to simply needing a simple out of the box Blow-Off System.

At EXAIR, we specialize in intelligent compressed air products with a primary focus on blow off, drying, and cooling. When it comes to these things, our product lines (pointedly for this blog, our Air Nozzles and Jets) are head and shoulders above our competition. The vast majority (with the exceptions of the High power or high force nozzles – for obvious reasons) all meet both OSHA standards concerning noise and dead end pressure. Here is a list of all of our Super Air Nozzles showing the SCFM, Force and Decibels:

Our Blow Off Systems (some sample pics below) are a fantastic and smart solution for so many applications. It really doesn’t get much easier than this, a Magnetic base, a Stay-Set Hose, and a Super Air Nozzle, all in one. I feel that these are heavily under utilized. Simply connect your air hose, bend the Stay-Set Hose to the direction of spray that you need, and boom, Bob’s your uncle…

Mag Bases come with one or two outlets. Stay Set Hoses come in lengths from 6″ to 36″.

Sometimes things can be as simple as using chocolate icing for brown icing, or using an EXAIR Blow-Off System in your application. Of course if you need more than that, we will help you find the right solution for you. Call today to speak with an experienced application engineer that is eager to help.

Thank you for stopping by,

Brian Wages

Application Engineer

EXAIR Corporation
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Video Blog: How To Calculate Air Consumption At A Pressure Other Than Published Values

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The below video shows how to calculate the air consumption when operating at any pressure.

If you want to discuss efficient compressed air use or any of EXAIR’s engineered compressed air products, give us a call or email.  We would enjoy hearing from you!

Steve Harrison
Application Engineer
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