Tag: math

Robert Boyle the Father of Chemistry and Boyles Law

Published on by codybiehleLeave a comment

Robert Boyle, one of the founding fathers of modern chemistry and a man who changed the very way we look at scientific research. From the Scientific Method to the very laws that govern gasses, Robert Boyle was able to change the very way we look at life and solve our problems. One could say that Robert Boyle didn’t really have what you would call a humble beginning; he was born in January 1627 to the 1st Earl of Cork Richard Boyle and his wife Catherine Fenton at Lismore Castle in Ireland. When he was only 8 years of age, he was sent off to Eton College in order to study under a private tutor. In 1641 Robert would spend the winter in Florence Italy studying the “paradoxes of the great star-gazer” Galileo Galilei.

Robert Boyle

Starting in mid-1644 Robert would make his residence in Dorset England were he conducted many experiments and from then devote his life to research. In 1654, Boyle would move to Oxford from Ireland in order to further pursue his studies in chemistry. It was here in 1657 that he would read about Otto von Guericke’s air pump, and would set out to improve the system along with Robert Hooke. In 1659 the “Pneumatic Engine” would be completed and he began a series of experiments on the properties of air. He would further go on to coin the term factitious airs which is a term used to describe synthetic gases after isolating what is now understood to be hydrogen.

Though he was primarily interested in chemistry, one of Boyle’s most famous discovery was what is now known as the first of the gas laws, rightfully named Boyles’s Law.  Boyle’s Law defines the relationship between pressure and volume in a closed area given the mass of an ideal gas. Boyle and his assistant Robert Hooke used a closed J-Shaped tube and poured mercury in from the open side, forcing the air on the other side to contract under the pressure. After repeating this using several different amounts of mercury Boyle deducted that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to the volume occupied by it.

Boyle’s Law

In 1669 his health, although which was never very good, began to fail seriously and he withdrew from the public. In his later days he would propose some important chemical investigations which he wanted to leave as a sort of legacy for those who would were also “Disciples of the Art”, essentially future chemists. On the winters day on December 31, 1691 Robert Boyle took his final breath. In his will Robert Boyle left a series of lectures known as the Boyle Lectures the talked about the relationship between Christianity and today’s science.  

Here at EXAIR we use Boyle’s Law everyday as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen (the three main elements that make up air) are all considered ideal gas. This means that all of our products are governed by the relationship between pressure and volume.

If you have questions about any of our quiet EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR or any Application Engineer.

Cody Biehle
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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Robert Boyle image courtesy of Skara Kommun, Creative Commons License

Don’t Fall Victim To Undersized Piping

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Pressure drops, incorrect plumbing, undersized piping, insufficient flow; if you hear these terms from tech support of your point of use compressed air products or from your maintenance staff when explaining why a process isn’t working then you may be a victim of improper compressed air piping selection.
Often time this is due to a continued expansion of an existing system that was designed around a decade old plan. It could also come from a simple misunderstanding of what size of piping is needed and so to save some costs, smaller was used. Nonetheless, if you can understand a small number of variables and what your system is going to be used for, you can ensure the correct piping is used. The variables that you will want to consider when selecting a piping size that will suit your need and give the ability to expand if needed are shown below.

  • Minimum Operating Pressure Allowed (psig) – Lowest pressure permitted by any demand side point of use product.
  • System Pressure (psig) – Safe operating pressure that will account for pressure drops.
  • Flow Rate (SCFM) of demand side (products needing the supplied compressed air)
  • Total Length of Piping System (feet)
  • Piping Cost ($)
  • Installation Cost ($)
  • Operational Hours ( hr.)
  • Electical Costs ($/kwh)
  • Project Life (years) – Is there a planned expansion?

An equation can be used to calculate the diameter of pipe required for a known flow rate and allowable pressure drop. The equation is shown below.

A = (144 x Q x Pa) / (V x 60 x (Pd + Pa)
Where:
A = Cross-Sectional are of the pipe bore. (sq. in.).
Q = Flow rate (cubic ft. / min of free air)
Pa = Prevailing atmospheric absolute pressure (psia)
Pd  = Compressor discharge gauge pressure (psig)
V = Design pipe velocity ( ft/sec)

If all of these variables are not known, there are also reference charts which will eliminate the variables needed to total flow rate required for the system, as well as the total length of the piping. The chart shown below was taken from EXAIR’s Knowledge Base.

Once the piping size is selected to meet the needs of the system the future potential of expansion should be taken into account and anticipated for. If no expansion is planned, simply take your length of pipe and start looking at your cost per foot and installation costs. If expansions are planned and known, consider supplying the equipment now and accounting for it if the additional capital expenditure is acceptable at this point.

The benefits to having properly sized compressed air lines for the entire facility and for the long-term expansion goals makes life easier. When production is increased, or when new machinery is added there is not a need to re-engineer the entire system in order to get enough capacity to that last machine. If the main compressed air system is undersized then optimal performance for the facility will never be achieved. By not taking the above variables into consideration or just using what is cheapest is simply setting the system up for failure and inefficiencies. All of these considerations lead to an optimized compressed air system which leads to a sustainable utility.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Convective Heat Transfer: How Do We Use It?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment
Vortex Tubes have been studied for decades, close to a century. These phenoms of physics and the theory behind them have been discussed on this blog before. Many customers gravitate toward Vortex Tubes when needing parts and processes cooled. The fact of the matter is there is still more to be discussed on how to correctly select the which product may be needed in your application. The reason being, area, temperatures, and air flow volumes play a large role in choosing the best product for cooling. The tendency is to say, well I need to cool this down as far as possible so I need the coldest air possible which leads to the assumption that a Vortex Tube will be the right solution. That isn’t always the best option and we are going to discuss how to best determine which will be needed for your application. The first step, is to call, chat, or email an Application Engineer so that we can learn about your application and assist with the implementation of the Vortex Tube or other cooling product for you. You may also want to try and take some initial readings of temperatures. The temperatures that would help to determine how much cooling is going to be needed are listed below:
  • Part temperature
  • Part dimensions
  • Part material
  • Ambient environment temperature
  • Compressed air temperature
  • Compressed air line size
  • Amount of time desired to cool the part: Lastly desired temperature
With these bits of information, we use cooling equations to help determine what temperature and volume of air will best suit your needs to generate the cooling required. One of the equations we will sometimes use is the Forced or Assisted Convective Heat Transfer. Why do we use convective heat transfer rather than Natural Heat Transfer? Well, the air from EXAIR’s Intelligent Compressed Air Products® is always moving so it is a forced or assisted movement to the surface of the part. Thus, the need for Convective Heat Transfer.
Calculation of convection is shown below: q = hc A dT Where: q = Heat transferred per unit of time. (Watts, BTU/hr) A = Heat transfer area of the surface (m2 , ft2) hc= Convective heat transfer coefficient of the process (W/(m2°C), BTU/(ft2 h °F) dT = Temperature difference between the surface and the bulk fluid (compressed air in this case) (°C, °F)

The convective heat transfer coefficient for air flow is able to be approximated down to hc = 10.45 – v + 10 v1/2

Where: hc = Heat transfer coefficient (kCal/m2 h °C) v = relative speed between the surface of the object and the air (m/s)

This example is limited to velocities and there are different heat transfer methods, so this will give a ballpark calculation that will tell us if we have a shot at a providing a solution.  The chart below is also useful to see the Convective Heat Transfer, it can be a little tricky to read as the units for each axis are just enough to make you think of TRON light cycles. Rather than stare at this and try to find the hidden picture, contact an Application Engineer, we’ve got this figured out. convective_heat_transfer_chart

1 – Convective Heat Transfer Chart
Again, you don’t have to figure any of this out on your own. The first step to approach a cooling application is to reach out to an Application Engineer, we deal with these types of applications and equations regularly and can help you determine what the best approach is going to be.
Brian Farno Application Engineer BrianFarno@EXAIR.com @EXAIR_BF
1 – Engineering ToolBox, (2003). Convective Heat Transfer. [online] Available at: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-transfer-d_430.html [02/10/2021]

Tools Of The Trade: The Rotameter

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

EXAIR’s Free Efficiency Lab

One of the free services we offer to customers here at EXAIR is our Efficiency Lab. In case you are not familiar here is a brief synopsis. Speak with an Application Engineer about your existing compressed air blowoff/point of use product and that you would like to know how much air it consumes. Fill out the brief survey and send the product you use in to our facility. Let us perform tests on calibrated test equipment to determine the force, flow, and noise level. We will then issue you a report that states what the EXAIR model would best be suited (if applicable) as well as how much compressed air you will be able to save. Order the recommendation and start saving money.

To do these evaluations, we have to have calibrated equipment that is reliable and capable of handling vast range of products we may receive in. For this, we could use a Digital Flowmeter, in some cases that is what has to be done due to large flow rates. For the majority of these though we go old school. We utilize a piece of equipment called a rotameter.

A rotameter pairs nicely with a calibrated pressure gauge as well.

The float can be seen with graduated marks for readings. The taper of the chamber is not easily seen with the naked eye.

This is a device that is designed to measure the flow rate of a fluid within a closed tube. The inside diameter of the tube is varied which causes the float within the meter to raise or lower.  They are calibrated for a specific gas at a given pressure and temperature, most are calibrated for atmospheric conditions, 14.7 psi (1.014 Bar). The meter must be mounted vertically and this is not always best suited for industrial environments.

When testing products the compressed air within the meter is pressurized which means we have to correct the reading for the given pressure, if the temperature is outside of the calibration temp then we must also perform that correction. We do this using a table provided by the manufacturer of the meter or by using the calculations shown to get exact values that may be in between the pressures in the table.

Pressure Correction Table

 

This will allow us to then multiply the Correction Factor by the meter reading and calculate our corrected flow for the point of use device at a given operating pressure and temperature.

Temperature correction table

Knowing where the values that are measured and calculated come from add validity to the reports and understanding all of the variables that go into reading like this helps to better validate the cost savings that can be seen.

In a pinch, for a field estimation, we can also use these Correction Factors and determine an approximate consumption rate of a device that has been measured at a pressure such as our cataloged 80 psig (5.5 Bar). This can often be done on the fly to help determine the flowrates currently on a system. This can be helpful when troubleshooting, giving estimated simple ROIs, and help justify results and reasons for future purchases of engineered solutions.

If you want to discuss the Efficiency Lab or any of the math behind our calculations, contact any Application Engineer, we can all help out.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF