Tag: industrial air movers

Optimizing Your Compressed Air Usage With Engineered Products

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

The first new car I ever bought was a 1995 Ford Escort Wagon. I’ve mentioned this before in posts about preventive maintenance, the importance of proper filtration, and brand loyalty. Those blogs were primarily about my experiences with that little red wagon, but today I wanted to discuss the primary reason I bought the car in the first place.

I had a 50-mile round trip commute to work, and my old Pontiac Grand Prix with the small block V8 engine was a great ride for sure. Some quick math, however, showed that if I went with something with better gas mileage, I could save quite a bit of money on gasoline. My calculation was almost $1,000 a year, just on driving back & forth to work. After figuring in the rest of my driving for the first year, it was more like $1,400 a year.

Similar to my “upgrade” to a more fuel efficient vehicle, upgrading blowoff, cooling and drying operations using engineered compressed air products is Step #3 in EXAIR’s Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System. We’ve assigned an order to these steps in accordance with basic good engineering practice & protocol, but it’s not necessary to follow them in any particular order. In fact, all six steps really don’t apply to every single compressed air system.

Step #3 does apply to most systems, though. I spent a fair amount of time in all sorts of industrial facilities in my previous roles, servicing industrial & chemical pumps, and almost all the time, regardless of the industry or the size of the facility, the maintenance part of the facility used air guns. However, I don’t recall ever seeing an engineered nozzle on one before I came to EXAIR. Since then, I’ve worked with a BUNCH of users to dramatically reduce compressed air consumption by replacing their cheap and inefficient air guns with EXAIR Safety Air Guns, or by retrofitting EXAIR Super Air Nozzles onto their existing air guns. We actually carry adapters to fit our Super Air Nozzles to a number of readily commercially available air guns for that very purpose.

The five families of EXAIR handheld blowoff products include VariBlast Precision & Compact, Soft Grip, Heavy Duty, SuperBlast, and TurboBlast Safety Air Guns. They’re available with a range of engineered Super Air Nozzles, Extensions, and Chip Shields.

In addition to air guns & nozzles, our Air Knives have a long history of replacing drilled pipes & pipe manifolds with inefficient nozzles used to make a curtain of air flow. The following chart details the savings you can realize from the use of a 24″ Super Air Knife instead of similar devices for a 24″ wide air curtain:

Even though an electric powered blower will use less electricity than the amount of electricity an air compressor uses to supply an engineered product like the Super Air Knife, the maintenance costs make the total cost of ownership eclipse that of the engineered Air Knife.

Our Case Study Library (registration required, but it’s free & fast) documents many real-world situations where customers worked with us to gather & publish “before/after” documentation, proving out the benefits of Step #3. I encourage you to check those out, and if you think you might have an opportunity to do a Case Study with us, we offer discounts or credit for that…give me a call.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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Custom Super Air Amplifier

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

A customer called in looking to incorporate some more airflow to help materials flow properly through their processing line. This line included several legacy machines, so we had to get creative to fit something with in the system in place. It just so happened there were several 3/4″ FNPT ports in the sections where the increased air flow was needed!

So we came up with a 3/4″ Super Air Amplifier, 120020. But rather than the typical smooth OD outlet we extended it a bit and put a 3/4″ MNPT thread on the end! See it below next to a photo of the 120020.

Right side is a stock 120020, and to the left is the Custom 120020 with a 3/4″ MNPT threaded outlet!

EXAIR’s Super Air Amplifiers achieve air amplification ratios ranging from 12:1 on our smallest units and up to 25:1 for our 4” and 8” models. EXAIR’s Super Air Amplifiers utilize a patented shim design to maintain critical positioning of component parts. This allows a precise amount of compressed air to be released at exact intervals toward the center of the Super Air Amplifier. This creates a constant, high velocity outlet flow across the entire cross-sectional area. Free, ambient air is entrained through the unit, resulting in high amplification ratios. The balanced outlet airflow minimizes wind shear to produce sound levels far lower than other similar air movers.

Super Air Amplifiers are supplied with a .003” thick shim that is ideal for most applications. Flow and force can be increased by replacing the shim with a thicker .006” or .009” shim. The flow of air is also controlled by adjusting the input pressure supplied to the amplifier. Higher pressures increase both the force and flow, while lower pressures decrease both force and flow. All Super Air Amplifiers are available in kits that come with a shim set as well as a suitably sized pressure regulator and auto-drain filter.

EXAIR has a solution for you if you need to move A LOT of air, even if we need to customize it to fit perfectly in your application. Also, this custom product only took a few weeks to produce, so delivery times are still reasonable!  Reach out to an Application Engineer today if you have an application that you believe could be served with a low-cost, simple solution!

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Air Amplifiers, Pressure vs Flow

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

At least once a week I get a call about our line of Super Air Amplifiers regarding increasing the air pressure on a compressed air system. Well, the Super Air Amplifiers are perfect at increasing the volume of air you exhaust into an application by increasing the output air flow through entrainment of ambient air along with the primary compressed stream! So, they will increase volume for exhausting to atmosphere, but they do not increase your compressed air system pressure for an application.

But, let’s break the two things down a little further!

EXAIR Super Air Amplifiers!

EXAIR Air Amplifiers are a low-cost way to move air, smoke, fumes and light materials. These Air Amplifiers use the Coanda effect to create a low pressure area which draws in surrounding air to efficiently deliver a high volume of air to a target. Using a small amount of compressed air as their source, Air Amplifiers are among the most efficient products within EXAIR’s entire product line. EXAIR Air Amplifiers will create output flows up to 25 times their air consumption rate and deliver it at a high velocity. The entrainment of outside air amplifies the total volume of air at the output, which also increases force, cooling ability and circulation.

Air Amplifiers use the Coanda Effect to generate high flow with low consumption.

EXAIR’s Air Amplifiers have no moving parts, assuring maintenance-free operation. Fine-tuning flow, vacuum and velocity are easily controlled by regulating the input pressure. For gross adjustment of air flow and vacuum an internal shim is used to increase or decrease the internal “air gap” that the compressed air flows through. Both the vacuum and discharge ends of the Air Amplifier can be ducted, making them ideal for drawing fresh air from another location, or moving smoke and fumes away from an application.

Pressure Boosters

When folks first call in about Air Amplifiers, they generally have in their mind the concept of a pressure booster. Pressure boosters, by comparison, are completely different and are typically more complex systems involving motors or air cylinders in conjunction with feedback and operation controls. Their main job is to increase a baseline pressure in a system to keep low pressure situations from occurring within high value systems or for an unusual case of a pneumatic application that requires pressure higher than the facility, system pressure. For example, in robotic spray booths, the robots and valves require 50 PSIG but if they drop below 20 PSIG, the system can damage itself. A pressure booster can be installed to keep lower pressure systems maintained at a higher pressure for application needs. The systems on which pressure boosters are used tend to be more “closed loop” where a static pressure can be maintained. If a dynamic (moving) higher pressure is required for an application, a booster air compressor intended only for that application may be used to keep the entire facility pressure from having to be raised only to accommodate the one application.

It is my genuine hope that the above explanation regarding EXAIR Air Amplifiers versus air pressure amplifiers (Boosters) is helpful. If you have questions regarding EXAIR Intelligent Air Products please contact myself or one of our Application Engineers as we are always ready to help.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer


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EXAIR Air Amplifiers Blow Fans out of the Water!

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

EXAIR’s product line contains many products that can be used for cooling. The focus of this blog will be Super Air Amplifiers. These often times get placed in a head-to-head competition with an electric fan. The best part, they easily come out on top.

When looking at the benefits other than performance and rate of cooling due to air entrainment, many customers prefer the Super Air Amplifier due to the fact there are no moving parts. This comes into play when cooling within in a hard-to-reach area or within a harsh process is needed.  Placing an electric motor with a blade held on by fasteners may not be desirable from a maintenance standpoint. The Super Air Amplifiers do not require electricity and there is not a motor or bearings that would need to be replaced or inspected.

Another benefit is the small footprint of the Super Air Amplifier. This can also be seen within the video below where the Air Amplifier is shown is able to produce 341 SCFM (9,650 SLPM) in amplified airflow. Compared to the fan in the video, the amplifier is less than a 1/4 of the size but outperforms the fan in cooling the metal block! This allows users to place a small unit inside a tight area or chamber that requires large volumes of air.  For instance, a rotomolded part that has a large chamber, and it needs surfaces to be cooled in order for the part to hold its shape from the mold rather than warp.  This can also be coupled with the fact that a Super Air Amplifier can be ducted on either the suction or discharge side in order to retrieve cool air or move the warm air out of the area.

Speaking of warm, the Super Air Amplifiers are also manufactured to withstand up to 275 °F (135 °C) from stock.  Stainless Steel and High-temperature models go well beyond that temp, up to 700 °F (374 °C). Custom-designed (flanges and different materials are common) versions are also available with short lead-times.

If you would like to discuss the benefits to a Super Air Amplifier further, feel free to contact us.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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