Tag: air knife cooling

Super Air Knife and Laminar Air Flow

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

What sets EXAIR’s Super Air Knife above the competition is the ability to maintain a consistent laminar flow across the full length of the knife, particularly when compared against blower-operated knives or even fans. A fan “slaps” the air, resulting in a turbulent airflow where the airflow particles are irregular and will interfere with each other. A laminar airflow, by contrast, will maintain smooth paths that will never interfere with one another.

Top: 108″ Super Air Knife is supported & aimed via an array of Model 9060 Universal Air Knife Mounting Systems. Bottom: mounting systems can be ‘overkill’ for some smaller applications, especially when the user is creative. Yes, those are door hinges. No, it wasn’t my idea, but I kind of wish it was.

The effectiveness of a laminar airflow vs turbulent airflow is particularly evident in the case of a cooling application. The chart below shows the time to cool computers to ambient temperatures for an automotive electronics manufacturer. They used a total of (32) 6” axial fans, (16) across the top and (16) across the bottom as the computers traveled along a conveyor. The computers needed to be cooled down before they could begin the testing process. By replacing the fans with just (3) Model 110012 Super Air Knives at a pressure of just 40 psig, the computers were cooled from 194 °F down to 81°F in just 90 seconds. The fans, even after 300 seconds, still couldn’t remove enough heat to allow the customer to test them.

Utilizing a laminar airflow is also critical when the airflow is being used to carry static-eliminating ions further to the surface. Static charges can be both positive or negative. In order to eliminate them, we need to deliver an ion of the opposite charge to neutralize it. Since opposite charges attract, having a product that produces a laminar airflow to carry the ions makes the static reduction dramatically more effective. As you can see from the graphic above showing a turbulent airflow pattern vs a laminar one, a turbulent airflow is going to cause these ions to come into contact with one another. This neutralizes them before they’re even delivered to the surface needing to be treated. With a product such as the Super Ion Air Knife, we’re using a laminar airflow pattern to deliver the positive and negative ions. Since the flow is laminar, the total quantity of ions that we’re able to deliver to the surface of the material remains greater. This allows the charge to be neutralized more quickly, rather than having to sit and “dwell” under the ionized airflow.

EXAIR Super Air Knives are the most efficient compressed air knife on the market, and for a limited time, you will receive a FREE Safety Air Gun when you purchase any EXAIR Super Air Knife! Learn more over on our site. (Until December 31, 2024)

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Saving Money with our Super Air Knives

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Here at EXAIR we are confident that there is a lot to gain from using our products. Two of the biggest benefits of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products are a reduction in noise, and a reduction in Compressed Air usage. The latter will often lead to big money savings. Many times the savings our products offer will pay for the product itself! What is my Return on Investment going to be?

So, how do you calculate your ROI? The easy answer is that you don’t have to! You can use our Air Savings Calculator to calculate your savings for you. If you know your current air consumption (in SCFM), the new air consumption (SCFM) and the cost of the product, our calculator will turn that into monetary savings, as well as the calculated payback time in days.

Another option if you would rather not do the calculations yourself, is that you can send the item in question to our Efficiency Lab Testing. The Efficiency Lab Testing is a free service that we offer to show you the possible savings by switching to one of our products. We will calculate the savings for you and send you the results of our findings.
The final option – my favorite by the way – is that we can do the math right here:

For a simple example, I’m going to show the ROI of replacing a drilled copper pipe with an EXAIR Super Air Knife for a blowoff application. The calculations will be as follows:

Copper Pipe (1/4”): 3x 3/32” diameter drilled holes uses 9.4scfm per hole (28.2scfm total) at 80psig.

3” Super Air Knife: uses 8.7scfm at 80psig

Calculation:

For the yearly consumption, we need to find how many minutes in a year the blowoff will be operated:

For the Copper Pipe:

For 3” Super Air Knife

The difference between these two:

At this point, if you know your facilities cost to generate 1,000scf, you can use that to calculate how much you would save. For this example, we will use $0.25 to generate 1,000scf, which is used by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate costs. This gives the following yearly savings:

With an investment of $273.00 (at the time of publishing), you can calculate the time it would take to pay off the unit:

From these numbers you can see that after 117 days, the 3” Super Air Knife will have paid for itself.

As you can see, it doesn’t have to take long for the knife to pay for itself, and then continue to contribute toward your bottom line. 

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Banner image by Peter Fertig from Pixabay

Super Air Knife Positioning and Mounting

Published on by jasonkirbyLeave a comment

Super Air Knives are a versatile product for a wide variety of applications, including cleaning, drying, blow-off, and cooling. With no moving parts, the Super Air Knives provide a hard hitting curtain of air, with laminar and uniform airflow for your industrial application needs. The 40:1 air amplification is a great way to maximize the use of your compressed air supply, while maximizing efficiency at a surprisingly low decibel level.

While every application is different, there are a few essential standards and practices to consider when mounting. The primary airflow is provided by the compressed air, but the air amplification of 40:1 is provided by the designed ambient air entrainment. This means that the Super Air Knife will pull in the ambient air to increase the volume of your output airflow. For this to take place, you will need to allow spacing on both the top and bottom of the Super Air Knife. While there is not a minimum requirement, I would suggest not mounting your knife any closer than one half inch from any obstruction. This will allow the ambient air to be pulled through both the top and bottom of the knife to ensure proper air entrainment.

Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife

Another consideration you need to take into account when mounting the Super Air Knife is the compressed air inlet locations. The Super Air Knife has compressed air inlets at the opposite ends of the knife. Knives between 48″-59″ use 2 inlets at the opposite ends, plus 1 near the middle of the bottom of the knife. Knives 60″-83″ use 2 inlets at the opposite ends, plus 2 inlets equally spaced on the bottom of the knife. Knives 84″ and longer use 2 inlets at the opposite ends, plus 3 inlets equally spaced on the bottom of the knife. When mounting, be aware of the inlet requirements in order to allow enough space for your compressed air supply hoses.

Orientation of the Super Air Knife will depend on your application. Orientation of the knife will not affect performance, as long as proper spacing is allowed for compressed air supply and ambient air entrainment. While some applications will require a 90 degree placement of the knife to the target, most will benefit from increased contact time of the laminar airflow to the target. For example, when using the Super Air Knife for drying on a conveyor system, you will want to place the knife at as low an angle as possible, opposite to the oncoming material. This allows more contact time between the laminar airflow and the material, increasing the drying potential. This applies to blow-off and cooling applications as well.

Universal Mounting System

If you are unsure of where to mount your Super Air Knife for optimal performance, you may want to consider using EXAIR’s Universal Air Knife Mounting System. This mounting system is used to provide a secure, precise position for any of the EXAIR Air Knives. The Universal Air Knife Mounting System can quickly and easily be adjusted to move a connected Super Air Knife to be within close proximity of the part to improve blowing effectiveness. The Universal Mounting Mystem can also be used when testing different locations before permanently mounting your knife.

If you would like to discuss Super Air Knife mounting and positioning, please do not hesitate to contact an Application Engineer. We are always happy to help!

Jason Kirby
Application Engineer
Email: jasonkirby@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jk

Tailor-Made Compressed Air Knives From EXAIR

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

EXAIR’s Super Air Knife utilizes a source of compressed air to create a laminar sheet of high velocity air. This supplied compressed air mixes with ambient air that is entrained into the primary airstream. The Super Air Knife entrains ambient air at a rate of 40:1, making it VERY effective in a variety of drying, cleaning, and cooling applications. Available in lengths ranging from 3”-108” and in a variety of different materials of construction, there’s a Super Air Knife available for just about any application. Any time you have product moving along a conveyor that needs to be cleaned, dried, or cooled off, a Super Air Knife is the ideal fit.

The Super Air Knife is available in aluminum, Type 303 & Type 316 stainless steel, as well as in PVDF with Hastelloy bolts for extremely corrosive applications.  While there are numerous options available off the shelf ready to ship on the same day, not all applications can be served by a stock option. Since EXAIR handles all the manufacturing of these products in our facility in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have a great deal of control over the manufacturing process. If your application cannot accept something right off the shelf, we’re constantly producing special customized knives to meet most requirements.

Our knives can be manufactured in a special length if a stock length won’t fit in your application. We’ll use the same design and size profile and can build it to the precise length you require in order to fit perfectly onto your machine. If the dimensional profile of an existing knife isn’t suitable, we can change that too! The Super Air Knife shown below utilizes a very thin design and has been completely modified to achieve the smallest overall profile possible.

All Super Air Knives come stock with ¼ NPT air inlets and ¼-20 tapped holes along the bottom that can be used for mounting. Unfortunately, that isn’t always going to work for every application, so we also manufacture specials with custom air inlets as well as additional mounting holes to fit right onto any custom bracket. The photo below shows a modified stainless steel Super Air Knife with additional mounting holes machined onto either end.

We don’t just offer them in different shapes and sizes as a special, but we’ve also manufactured stock length knives out of entirely different materials. Shown below are two knives of different materials that aren’t already on the shelf. On the left-hand side is a knife manufactured from PVDF and on the right a glass filled PEEK material with brass hardware and a PTFE shim. In this application, the customer noticed ground interference due to the aluminum knife construction. They specified this particular material, and we were able to machine a knife completely customized for this application.

Every year, a new request comes across that is something we haven’t done before. Just because you don’t see it in the catalog doesn’t mean it isn’t possible when you deal with EXAIR. We’re here to make sure you get the most out of our products, and sometimes that isn’t possible right off the shelf. Contact an Application Engineer today if you’d like to discuss your application and begin the process of identifying your next custom solution!

Tyler Daniel, CCASS

Application Engineer

E-mail: TylerDaniel@EXAIR.com

X: @EXAIR_TD