Tag: Learning

Drying Supply Side Air With Heat of Compression Dryers

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

The supply side of a compressed air system has many critical parts that factor in to how well the system operates and how easily it can be maintained.   Dryers for the compressed air play a key role within the supply side are available in many form factors and fitments.  Today we will discuss heat of compression-type dryers.

Heat of compression-type dryer- Twin Tower Version

Heat of compression-type dryers are a regenerative desiccant dryer that take the heat from the act of compression to regenerate the desiccant.  By using this cycle they are grouped as a heat reactivated dryer rather than membrane technology, deliquescent type, or refrigerant type dryers.   They are also manufactured into two separate types.

The single vessel-type heat of compression-type dryer offers a no cycling action in order to provide continuous drying of throughput air.  The drying process is performed within a single pressure vessel with a rotating desiccant drum.  The vessel is divided into two air streams, one is a portion of air taken straight off the hot air exhaust from the air compressor which is used to provide the heat to dry the desiccant. The second air stream is the remainder of the air compressor output after it has been processed through the after-cooler. This same air stream passes through the drying section within the rotating desiccant drum where the air is then dried.  The hot air stream that was used for regeneration passes through a cooler just before it gets reintroduced to the main air stream all before entering the desiccant bed.  The air exits from the desiccant bed and is passed on to the next point in the supply side before distribution to the demand side of the system.

The  twin tower heat of compression-type dryer operates on the same theory and has a slightly different process.  This system divides the air process into two separate towers.  There is a saturated tower (vessel) that holds all of the desiccant.  This desiccant is regenerated by all of the hot air leaving the compressor discharge.  The total flow of compressed air then flows through an after-cooler before entering the second tower (vessel) which dries the air and then passes the air flow to the next stage within the supply side to then be distributed to the demand side of the system.

The heat of compression-type dryers do require a large amount of heat and escalated temperatures in order to successfully perform the regeneration of the desiccant.  Due to this they are mainly observed being used on systems which are based on a lubricant-free rotary screw compressor or a centrifugal compressor.

No matter the type of dryer your system has in place, EXAIR still recommends to place a redundant point of use filter on the demand side of the system.  This helps to reduce contamination from piping, collection during dryer down time, and acts as a fail safe to protect your process.  If you would like to discuss supply side or demand side factors of your compressed air system please contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Heat of compression image: Compressed Air Challenge: Drive down your energy costs with heat of compression recovery: https://www.plantservices.com/articles/2013/03-heat-of-compression-recovery/

A Good Example of Dedication and Commitment from the First Grade

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

This year, my oldest daughter started First Grade.  My second daughter will be starting preschool two days a week, and the youngest, well she just has no fear and doesn’t see the consequences of her actions at this point in life.   To say the least, the past few weeks have been extremely busy, as I am sure it has been for most of us.

A Great Message For School. (Not On Our Schools)
A Great Message For School.

I went to the parent – teacher introduction night with my beautiful wife and we got to meet the first grade teacher who definitely has her work cut out for her.   The amount of effort and care this teacher has poured into this class is already apparent in the first week of school.   She sent us all her personal cell phone number, sends out updates through a smartphone app, and has even told all parents that if a child in her classroom is involved in an activity outside of school that she will attend one of these events because she wants to see the children in their element and see what makes them happy.  All of these “extra” things the teacher does, she doesn’t get paid for, and is strictly doing out of her love for teaching and the children she teaches.  She legitimately loves her job and wants to see each of these students succeed in life.

There are people who teach that go to their job and give the bare minimum to not get let go and to merely collect a paycheck.   There are also a great number of educators that go above and beyond every day of the school year.  When it comes to teachers, so far my oldest daughter has been extremely blessed.  She had an amazing teacher for both Preschool, Kindergarten, and now even First Grade.   Each of these has also been at 3 different schools where she has thrived and I could not be happier with our school district.  I even mentioned to my wife, who is a former primary teacher, that I do not look forward to the year that one of our three daughters has a teacher that she does not agree with.  (That is going to be an extremely long year.)

Just as I noticed the level of dedication from the teachers I have had the joy of meeting, I have also realized that in order to succeed and thrive, there has to be dedication and going beyond the minimum.  This is what I see everyday when I walk through the doors here at EXAIR.  Whether I am walking through the front offices or the production areas, we by no means have a single team member that gives the minimum.  Every person here cares about whether or not the other succeeds, and we all work together with the same goal, blow our customer’s expectations out of the water.  This is just one reason we continue to release new products, offer the best means to contact us, as well as ship stock products same day, and provide order confirmations and install support for every single order.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer Manager
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

 

Photo Credit: Jdog90 – Flickr – Creative Commons https://flic.kr/p/awAXzv

 

 

Learning Styles – We Have You Covered

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

In the engineering department at EXAIR, we feature a couple of different generations of engineers.  This generational difference leads to some great discussions about the times, politics, and pop culture.  I’m often defending people who do things a little differently than they did in the 70’s or the 90’s.  I hate defending this because I think we have lost some know-how and wisdom over the last couple generations, but I do think that there are more opportunities for folks, who learns things outside of reading a book.

In my experience people learn by three different ways.  People learn by seeing things, hearing things, or doing things. I learn best by seeing things and doing things.  If you try and teach me something over the phone without any visual representation I have a hard time understanding the subject.  If I can see a picture or a video on the topic, I will pick it up much better and will take away more than listening to a lecture or reading a book.  One of my favorite things is talking to a person who has been growing a garden, grilling a steak or fixing a leaky sink about what they know and their secrets to a successful project (often a plan and organization but that is another blog).

types

Having said all that, today we have access to an enormous amount of information over the internet that we could never have accessed before.  This has the great benefit of opening new opportunities up to everyone. We don’t need to know everything that engineers had to know in the past, because we can look it up so much quicker.  It doesn’t pay much to have the dimensions of every thread memorized, because we can find it at our fingertips in seconds on a smart phone or laptop.

At EXAIR we are constantly mindful of a new generation of consumers that are using our products for the first time, and we want to provide as much material as possible to all of the different learning styles.  Because EXAIR is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, we cannot physically visit every customer that we have around the world, but we do try and expand our presence as far as possible.  Our best resource for dispersing our information is our website, EXAIR.com.

On the website we try to include as much new media as we can to explain how our products work and at which applications they excel.  In our Knowledge Base, we feature Case Studies, CAD Libraries, and Frequently Asked Questions to provide our customers as much information as possible about our products.  We do ask that you register to the website to receive this material.  To teach our visual learners, we create informal videos created by our application engineering department and post those on this blog, and we have Video Library.  For the audio learners, our application engineers are available to speak over the phone to answer any questions you may have.  For the tactile learners, we do offer all of our products inside the United  States and Canada on 30 day unconditional guarantee.  This allows customers to try our products and learn by doing.  These three methods allow any style of learner to understand our products, and use them to the best of their ability.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
davewoerner@exair.com