Tag: fix leak

Six Step to Optimization:  Step 2 – Finding and fixing leaks

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Since air compressors use a lot of electricity to make compressed air, it is important to use the compressed air as efficiently as possible. EXAIR has six simple steps to optimize your compressed air system. Following these steps will help you to cut electricity costs, reduce overhead, and improve your bottom line. In this blog, I will cover the second step – Find and Fix leaks in your compressed air system.

One of the largest problems affecting compressed air systems is leaks.  That quiet little hissing sound from the pipelines is costing your company much money.  For the amount of electricity required to produce compressed air, a study was conducted by a university to determine the percentage of air leaks in a typical manufacturing plant.  In a poorly maintained system, they found on average that 30% of the compressor capacity is lost through air leaks.  A majority of companies do not implement a leak prevention program; as result, many end up with a poorly maintained system.  To put a dollar value on it, a leak that you cannot physically hear can cost you as much as $130/year.  That is just for one inaudible leak in hundreds of feet of compressed air lines.  For the leaks that you can hear, you can tell by the chart below the amount of money that can be wasted by the size of the hole.  Unlike a hydraulic system, compressed air does not create a mess; so, leaks will not appear at the source.  You have to locate them by some other means. 

Most leaks occur where you have threaded fittings, connections, hoses, and pneumatic components like valves, regulators, and drains.  The Optimization products from EXAIR are designed to help optimize your compressed air system, and the most effective way is to eliminate leaks.  The Ultrasonic Leak Detectors can find the air leaks, and the Digital Flowmeters can monitor your system flow especially for those times when production is not running.  With both of these products implemented in a leak preventative program, you will have a far easier time identifying and locating leaks in order to keep your compressed air system running in an optimum condition.

EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector:

When a leak occurs, it emits an ultrasonic noise caused by turbulence.  These ultrasonic noises can be at a frequency which is inaudible for human hearing (> 20 kHz).  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector, model 9207, can pick up these frequencies and make the leaks audible through a process called “heterodyning”.  With a signal strength number and bar graph level display, you can find very minute leaks.  It comes with two attachments; the parabola to locate leaks up to 20 feet away, and a tube attachment to define the exact location of a leak among many connections within a pipe.  Once you find a leak, it can be marked for fixing.  This simple-to-use instrument can save you a lot of money and headaches.  You can watch a video about the Ultrasonic Leak Detector at this LINK.

EXAIR’s Digital Flowmeter w/ USB Data Logger

EXAIR Digital Flowmeter:

With the Digital Flowmeters, you can continuously monitor for waste.  Air leaks can occur at any time within any section of your pneumatic area.  You can do systematic checks by isolating sections, using a Digital Flowmeter to review flow readings.  Another way to monitor your system would be to compare the results over time.  With the Digital Flowmeters, we do offer the USB Datalogger as an option.  You can set certain time increments to record the air flows.  Once the information is recorded, you can connect the USB to your computer, and with the downloadable software, you can view the information.  You can also export it into an Excel spreadsheet to monitor.  Once the flow information starts trending upward for the same process, then you can use the Ultrasonic Leak Detector to find if and where a leak may be present.  The Digital Flow Meter can also act as a preventive measure to indicate when a pneumatic system is starting to fail by analyzing readings over time.

Compressed air leaks will rob your system of its capacity, compressor life, and electrical cost.  It is important to have a leak preventative program to check for leaks periodically as they can happen at any time.  The EXAIR Ultrasonic Leak Detector and the Digital Flowmeters will help you accomplish this and optimize your compressed air system.  Once you find and fix all your leaks, you can then focus on improving the efficiency of your blow-off devices with EXAIR products like Super Air Knives, Super Air Nozzles, and Super Air Amplifiers, and save yourself even more money.  This blog is an overview of Step 2 of the six steps. You may have more questions; and, that is great! You can find them in other EXAIR blogs, or you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.

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

Finding and Fixing Leaks in Your Compressed Air System

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

I had to find and fix some leaks this week – in my yard. See, my underground storm sewer pipe, that carries my basement sump pump discharge and my house’s gutter drains to the street, was leaking.

The evidence was clear…swampy puddles were developing in my neighbor’s yard.

The location was clear…several patches of grass in MY yard were WAY more green and vibrant than the rest.

The cause was NOT clear…until I dug up those patches of the best looking grass my lawn has ever seen. Turns out, my maple tree’s (the showpiece of my front yard) root system found a way to penetrate one of the couplings in the sewer pipe, where it prospered into this:

That’s about 8ft worth of root growth that was clogging my drain pipe, and causing leaks upstream. My maple tree is not shown in the picture because my maple tree is a real jerk.

Two days worth of digging up and reinstalling pipe later, and all is well.  I mean, except for filling the trench, sowing some new grass seed, watching the birds eat it, sowing some more, etc.  Ah, the joys of home ownership…

I tell you all this, dear reader, so you know that I. Don’t. Like. Leaks…whether they be in my storm sewer pipe or in your compressed air system…which brings me to the (real) subject of my blog today.

Unlike the visual indications of my yard leak, compressed air system leaks don’t really draw much attention to themselves.  Unless they grow quite large, they’re typically invisible and very quiet…much too quiet to be heard in a typical industrial environment, anyway.  Good news is, they’re not all that hard to find.

One way is to use a soap-and-water solution.  You just need a spray bottle, some dish soap, and water.  Spray it on the piping joints, and all but the smallest, most minute, of leaks will create soap bubbles…instant indication of air leakage.  This method is inexpensive and simple, but it does tend to leave little puddles all over.  Plus, if your header runs along the ceiling, you’re going to have to get up there to do it.  And unless you can easily maneuver all the way around the pipe, you can miss a leak on the other side of the joint. If you have a small and relatively simple compressed air system, and all your piping is accessible though, this method is tried and true.

For many industrial compressed air systems, though, the limitations of the soap bubble method make it impractical.  But I’ve got more good news: those silent (to us) air leaks are making a real racket, ultrasonically speaking.  And we’ve got something for that:

EXAIR Model 9061 Ultrasonic Leak Detector discovers and pinpoints leaks, quickly and easily.

See, when a pressurized gas finds its way through the narrow (and usually torturous) path out of a slightly loosened fitting, worn packing on a valve, etc., it creates sound waves.  Some of those ARE in audible frequencies, but they’re often so low as to be drowned out by everything else that’s happening in a typical industrial environment.  Those leaks, however, also create sound waves in ultrasonic frequencies…and EXAIR’s Ultrasonic Leak Detector takes advantage of that ultrasonic racket to show you where those leaks are, as well as give you a qualitative indication of their magnitude.  Here’s how it works:

Find leaks and fix them.  This is Step #2 of our Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System.  If you’d like to find out more, give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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