Tag: 3275

Hot Air In The Aerospace Industry

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Mankind’s adventures in aviation began with hot air, and it’s still kind of a big deal (for one particular EXAIR customer, that is) today.

How it started: In the 1780s, two French brothers, Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier, worked in their family’s paper mill. They noticed, along with everyone else, that pieces of paper were sometimes carried airborne in billows of smoke from the fires that heated the boilers. But unlike everyone else, they became curious as to why this happened…and how they might exploit this strange phenomenon to send something more substantial than some paper scraps through the air.

After a good deal of experimentation and trips “back to the drawing board” (they thought it was the smoke, not the heat, that caused the rise for a while), they began making public demonstrations of their first successful hot-air balloons in the summer of 1783. By autumn, having flown a sheep, a duck, and a rooster in a tethered balloon (to an altitude of about 1,500 feet on a flight that lasted about 8 minutes), they constructed a balloon large enough for two humans which flew successfully for almost half an hour, to a height of 3,000 feet. Early enthusiasts who came out to witness some of these flights included King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and American statesman (and quite the inventor himself) Benjamin Franklin.

The Montgolfier brothers decorated their balloons with the fleur-de-lis, zodiac symbols, and portraits of the King. I think it says a lot about ballooning that nowadays we have Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, and even Spider-Pig.

How it’s going: I’m not going to lie; your level of fascination with the rest of this blog will depend on how fascinating you find the phenomenon of the Vortex Tube…which was, in fact, discovered by another French inventor, Georges Ranque:

The unique physical phenomenon of the Vortex Tube principle generates cold – and hot – air instantly, and for as long – or short – a time as needed.

Most Vortex Tube applications involve the use of the cold air flow, but a number of customers do indeed use the hot air flow. A material supplier to the aircraft & aerospace industry makes a flexible, porous strand of material that, after fabrication, passes through a wash tank prior to cutting to size. They wanted to speed up the drying time, but it was impractical to use electrically powered hot air blowers or heat guns. By using an EXAIR Model 3275 Large Vortex Tube set to a 70% Cold Fraction, they’re able to blow a little over 22 SCFM of 220°F air onto the strand, which effectively dries it to their specification, quickly & safely.

The EXAIR Vortex Tube. Cold air from one end; hot air from the other. Fully adjustable. You can use either…it’s fine with us; whatever you need.

Other EXAIR products that have been notably popular in the aerospace industry are engineered Air Nozzles, Static Eliminators, Air Amplifiers, and some even use Vortex Tubes & Spot Cooling Products for their COLD air flow. If you’d like to find out more about getting the most out of your compressed air system like the folks in the aerospace industry do, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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“It’s Not Rocket Science”, or How Compressed Air Has Straightforward Applications In Aerospace

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

On the submarine I served on, many of us used math, specific to our jobs. Torpedo (and missile) fire control, navigation, reactor operations…even meal cooking…involved certain formulas to accomplish particular tasks. One formula we all knew and kept near & dear to our hearts, though, was:

Number of surfaces = Number of dives

And those who fly aircraft and spacecraft, in – and out of – the atmosphere, have a similar formula:

Number of landings = Number of takeoffs

While this certainly requires a great deal of skill of the operators (as does diving and surfacing a submarine), it also takes a great deal of technical acumen in the engineering and construction of those aircraft & spacecraft (and warships). Terms like “aircraft grade” inspire a high degree of confidence in the integrity of materials, and rightly so – the quality standards that manufacturers and suppliers are held accountable to are stringent and inviolate. That’s why aerospace professionals need reliable, durable, and effective equipment to do their jobs.

EXAIR Corporation has been providing this kind of equipment to the aerospace industry (and others) since 1983. Here are some examples of the applications we’ve worked with “steely eyed missile men” to solve:

  • A jet engine manufacturer makes a titanium assembly consisting of a honeycomb shaped extrusion bonded to a rigid sheet. The cells of the honeycomb are only 1/8” wide, and 3/8” deep. After fabrication, they’re washed & rinsed, and the tiny cells tend to hold water. They would invert & tap the assembly to try to get the water out, but that wasn’t always effective and occasionally led to damaging the assembly. To reduce the chance of damage (and loss) of an assembly, they built a cleaning station, using EXAIR Model HP1125 2” High Power Super Air Nozzles and Model 9040 Foot Pedals, for hands-free control of the high force blow out of the honeycomb cells. The results were increased production, decreased defects, and lower labor costs.
  • A machine shop makes composite material parts for the aerospace industry. Static charge would build up, causing the shavings to cling to most of the surfaces inside the machine. The vacuum system was unable to overcome the force of the static charge to remove it, so they called EXAIR. Our expertise in static elimination led to the specification of a Model 8494 Gen4 Stay Set Ion Air Jet System to direct ionized air onto the tool during cutting. This eliminated the static as it was generated on the shavings, allowing the vacuum system to perform as advertised. Not only did it make for a cleaner work station, the air flow provided cooling for the cutting tool, improving performance & extending life.
  • If a company works with metal parts, there’s a decent chance they operate a welding machine, and those things make smoke & fumes that, at best, are a nuisance, and at worst, are toxic. An airplane repair shop that has to weld in tight spaces needed a convenient, portable, compact way to evacuate the welding smoke and fumes. They chose a Model 120024 4” Super Air Amplifier. They’re capable of pulling in over 700 SCFM, and with a sound level of only 73dBA and lightweight aluminum construction, they’re an ideal fit for this application.
  • Certain satellites have components whose batteries must be fully charged to ensure that everything works just right. Because of the heat that charging generates, they couldn’t be charged with the spacecraft on the launch pad without cooling. Conventional methods of providing cold air (refrigerant based or cold water chillers) are too bulky, so they instead use a Model 3230 Medium Vortex Tube, capable of providing 2,000 Btu/hr worth of cooling air flow. This enables them to charge the battery until just prior to launch, making sure the batteries are as fully charged as possible, prior to deployment.
  • While the lion’s share of Vortex Tube applications involve the use of their cold flow, a number of folks do use the hot air flow, with great success. A major material supplier to the aircraft & aerospace industry makes a flexible, porous strand of material that, after fabrication, passes through a wash tank prior to cutting to size. They wanted to speed up the drying time, but it was impractical to use electrically powered hot air blowers or heat guns. By using an EXAIR Model 3275 Large Vortex Tube set to a 70% Cold Fraction, they’re able to blow a little over 22 SCFM of 220°F air onto the strand, which effectively dries it to their specification, quickly & safely.
These are some of the EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products used in the aerospace industry.

Exacting jobs call for safe, efficient, and reliable tools. Even if your job “isn’t rocket science”, the value of the right tool cannot be stressed enough. If you use – or want to use – compressed air for such a task, give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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“Math Wall” image courtesy of João Trindade, Creative Commons License