Tag: atmospheric air

Pressure – Absolute, Gauge, and Units of Both

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Compressed air is a common utility used throughout industrial facilities and it has to be measured like any other utility in order to know just how much a facility is using. When dealing with compressed air a common unit of measurement that readily comes up is psi, pound-force per square inch. This unit of measure is one of the most basic units used to measure pressure in the compressed air industry. There are other means to measure this though, so let’s discover the difference.

Again, the pressure is a force distributed over an area, the Earth’s atmosphere has pressure, if it didn’t we would all balloon up like the Violet from Willy Wonka, just without eating some prototype gum causing internal pressure. PSIA is a unit of measure that is relative to a full vacuum. It is pounds per square inch absolute (PSIA). The absolute pressure is calculated as the sum of the gauge pressure plus the atmospheric pressure. If you were to travel into space, the atmospheric pressure would be absolute zero which is actually a vacuum. There is nothing pushing from the outside in so the inside pushes out, hence the ballooning.

The atmospheric pressure on earth is based on sea level. This is 14.7 pounds per square inch absolute pressure. This pressure will change along with the weather and the altitude at which the measurement is taken.

So how do we get to the pressure that is displayed on a pressure gauge?  When shown open to room air, my pressure gauge reads zero psi. Well, that is zero psi gauge, this already has the atmosphere showing. It is not showing the Absolute pressure, it is showing the pressure relative to atmospheric conditions. This is going back to the fact that gauge pressure is the summation of absolute pressure and atmospheric conditions, for sea level on earth that is 14.7 psia. So how do we increase this and get the gauge to read higher levels?

We compress the air the gauge is measuring, whether it is using a screw compressor, dual-stage piston compressor, single-cylinder, or any other type of compressor, it is compressing the ambient, atmospheric air. Some materials do not like being compressed. Air, however, reacts well to being compressed and turns into a form of stored energy that gets used throughout industrial facilities.  By compressing the air, we effectively take the air from atmospheric conditions and squeeze it down into a storage tank or piping where it is stored until it is used. Because the air is being compressed you can fit larger volumes (cubic feet or cubic meters) into a smaller area. This is the stored energy, that air that is compressed always wants to expand back out to ambient conditions. Perhaps this video below will help, it shows the GREAT Julius Sumner Miller explaining atmospheric pressure, lack of it, and when you add to it.

Lastly, no matter where you are, there is a scientific unit that can express atmospheric pressure, compressed air pressure, or even lack of pressure which are vacuum levels. To convert between these scientific units, some math calculations are needed. While the video below is no Julius Sumner Miller, it does a great job walking through many of the units we deal with daily here at EXAIR.

 

If you want to discuss pressures, atmospheric pressure, how fast the air expands from your engineered nozzle to atmospheric, why all the moisture in the air compresses with it, and how to keep it out of your process, contact an application engineer and we will be glad to walk through the applications and explanations with you.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

1 – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory – Violet Blows Up Like a Blueberry Scene (7/10) | Movieclips, Movieclips, retrieved from https://youtu.be/8Yqw_f26SvM

2 – Lesson 10 – Atmospheric Pressure – Properties of Gases – Demonstrations in Physics,  Julius Sumner Miller, Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3qcAZrNC18

3 – Pressure Units and Pressure Unit Conversion Explained, Chem Academy, retrieve from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNs0VMiHNw

 

The Makeup of Earth’s Air

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Most people know that oxygen, makes up about 20% of the earth’s atmosphere at sea level, and that almost all the rest is nitrogen. But did you know there’s an impressive list of other gases in the air we breathe

whats in air
Reference: CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, edited by David R. Lide, 1997.

We can consider, for practical purposes, that air is made up of five gases: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. But because water vapor is a variable, this table omits it, water vapor generally makes up 1-3% of atmospheric air, by volume, and can be as high as 5%.  Which means that, even on a ‘dry’ day, it pushes argon out of third place!

There are numerous reasons why the volumetric concentrations of these gases are important.  If oxygen level drops in the air we’re breathing, human activity is impaired.  Exhaustion without physical exertion will occur at 12-15%.  Your lips turn blue at 10%.  Exposure to oxygen levels of 8% or below are fatal within minutes.

But here at EXAIR we care about how compressed air can be used efficiently to better your process! 

Any of our products are capable of discharging a fluid, but they’re specifically designed for use with compressed air – in basic grade school science terms, they convert the potential energy of air under compression into kinetic energy in such a way as to entrain a large amount of air from the surrounding environment.  This is important to consider for a couple of reasons:

  • Anything that’s in your compressed air supply is going to get on the part you’re blowing off with that Super Air Nozzle, the material you’re conveying with that Line Vac, or the electronics you’re cooling with that Cabinet Cooler System.  That includes water…which can condense from the water vapor at several points along the way from your compressor’s intake, through its filtration and drying systems, to the discharge from the product itself.
  • Sometimes, a user is interested in blowing a purge gas (commonly nitrogen or argon) –  but unless it’s in a isolated environment (like a closed chamber) purged with the same gas, most of the developed flow will simply be room air.

Another consideration of air make up involves EXAIR Gen4 Static Eliminators.  They work on the Corona discharge principle: a high voltage is applied to a sharp point, and any gas in the vicinity of that point is subject to ionization – loss or gain of electrons in their molecules’ outer valences, resulting in a charged particle.  The charge is positive if they lose an electron, and negative if they gain one.  Of the two gases that make up almost all of our air, oxygen has the lowest ionization energy in its outer valence, making it the easier to ionize than nitrogen.  You can certainly supply a Gen4 Static Eliminator with pure nitrogen if you wish, but the static dissipation rate may be lesser.

If you want to learn more about the compressed air or any of our point of use compressed air products, you can contact an Application Engineer.  We will be happy to help you.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Air photo courtesy of Barney Moss Creative Commons License

What’s In My Air, And Why Is It Important?

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Everyone knows there’s oxygen in our air – if there wasn’t oxygen in the air you’re breathing right now, reading this blog would be the least of your concerns. Most people know that oxygen, in fact, makes up about 20% of the earth’s atmosphere at sea level, and that almost all the rest is nitrogen. There’s an impressive list of other gases in the air we breathe, but what’s more impressive (to me, anyway) is the technology behind the instrumentation needed to measure some of these values:

Reference: CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, edited by David R. Lide, 1997.

We can consider, for practical purposes, that air is made up of five gases: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, and water vapor (more on that in a minute.)  The other gases are so low in concentration that there is over 10 times as much carbon dioxide as all the others below it, combined.

About the water vapor: because it’s a variable, this table omits it, water vapor generally makes up 1-3% of atmospheric air, by volume, and can be as high as 5%.  Which means that, even on a ‘dry’ day, it pushes argon out of the #3 slot.

There are numerous reasons why the volumetric concentrations of these gases are important.  If oxygen level drops in the air we’re breathing, human activity is impaired.  Exhaustion without physical exertion will occur at 12-15%.  Your lips turn blue at 10%.  Exposure to oxygen levels of 8% or below are fatal within minutes.

Likewise, too much of other gases can be bad.  Carbon monoxide, for example, is a lethal poison.  It’ll kill you at concentrations as low as 0.04%…about the normal amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

For the purposes of this blog, and how the makeup of our air is important to the function of EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products, we’re going to stick with the top three: nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor.

Any of our products are capable of discharging a fluid, but they’re specifically designed for use with compressed air – in basic grade school science terms, they convert the potential energy of air under compression into kinetic energy in such a way as to entrain a large amount of air from the surrounding environment.  This is important to consider for a couple of reasons:

  • Anything that’s in your compressed air supply is going to get on the part you’re blowing off with that Super Air Nozzle, the material you’re conveying with that Line Vac, or the electronics you’re cooling with that Cabinet Cooler System.  That includes water…which can condense from the water vapor at several points along the way from your compressor’s intake, through its filtration and drying systems, to the discharge from the product itself.
  • Sometimes, a user is interested in blowing a purge gas (commonly nitrogen or argon) –  but unless it’s in a isolated environment (like a closed chamber) purged with the same gas, most of the developed flow will simply be room air.

Another consideration of air make up involves EXAIR Gen4 Static Eliminators.  They work on the Corona discharge principle: a high voltage is applied to a sharp point, and any gas in the vicinity of that point is subject to ionization – loss or gain of electrons in their molecules’ outer valences, resulting in a charged particle.  The charge is positive if they lose an electron, and negative if they gain one.  Of the two gases that make up almost all of our air, oxygen has the lowest ionization energy in its outer valence, making it the easier of the two to ionize.  You can certainly supply a Gen4 Static Eliminator with pure nitrogen if you wish, but the static dissipation rate may be hampered to a finite (although probably very small) degree.

At EXAIR Corporation, we want to be the ones you think of when you think of compressed air.  If you’ve got questions about it, give us a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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Air photo courtesy of Bruno Creative Commons License