Tag: optimization

Creating an Efficient Compressed Air System

Published on by Tyler DanielLeave a comment

The electrical costs associated with generating compressed air make it the most expensive utility in any industrial facility. In order to help offset these costs, it’s imperative that the system is operating as efficiently as possible. I’d like to take a moment to walk you through some of the ways that you can work towards making your compressed air system more efficient.

The first step you should take is to identify and fix any leaks within the distribution piping. According to the Compressed Air Challenge, up to 30% of all compressed air generated is lost through leaks. This ends up accounting for nearly 10% of your overall energy costs!! To put leaks in perspective, take a look at the graphic below from the Best Practices for Compressed Air Systems handbook.

Compressed air leaks don’t just waste energy, but they can also contribute to other operating losses. If enough air is lost through leaks, this can also cause a drop in system pressure. This can affect the functionality of other compressed air operated equipment and processes. This pressure drop can affect the efficiency of the equipment causing it to cycle on/off more frequently or to not work properly. This can lead to anything from rejected products to increased running time. With an increase in running time, there’s also the need for more frequent maintenance and unscheduled downtime.

You can perform a compressed air audit in your facility using an EXAIR Model 9061 Ultrasonic Leak Detector. If you’d prefer someone come in and do this for you, there are several companies that offer energy audit services where this will be a focal point of the process.

Speaking of maintenance, proper compressor maintenance is also critical to the overall efficiency of the system. Like all industrial equipment, a proper maintenance schedule is required in order to ensure things are operating at peak efficiency. Inadequate compressor maintenance can have a significant impact on energy consumption via lower compressor efficiency. A regular preventative maintenance schedule is required in order to keep things in good shape. The compressor, heat exchanger surfaces, lubricant, lubricant filter, air inlet filter, and dryer all need to be maintained. This can be done yourself or through a reputable compressor dealer. The costs associated with these services are outweighed in the improved reliability and performance of the compressor. A well-maintained system will not cause unexpected shutdowns and will also cost less to operate.

The manner in which you use your compressed air at the point of use should also be evaluated. Inefficient, homemade solutions are thought to be a cheap and quick solution. Unfortunately, the costs to supply these inefficient solutions with compressed air can quickly outweigh the costs of an engineered solution. An engineered compressed air nozzle such as EXAIR’s line of Super Air Nozzles are designed to utilize the coanda effect. Free, ambient air from the environment is entrained into the airflow along with the supplied compressed air. This maximizes the force and flow of the nozzle while keeping compressed air usage to a minimum.

Another method of making your compressed air system more efficient is actually quite simple: regulating the supply pressure. By installing pressure regulators at the point of use for each of your various point of use devices, you can reduce the consumption simply by reducing the pressure. This can’t be done for everything, but I’d be willing to bet that several tasks could be accomplished with the same level of efficiency at a reduced pressure. Most shop air runs at around 80-90 psig, but for general blowoff applications you can often get by operating at a lower pressure. Another simple, but often overlooked, method is to simply shut off the compressed air supply when not in use. If you haven’t yet performed an audit to identify compressed air leaks this is even more of a no-brainer. When operators go to lunch or during breaks, what’s stopping you from just simply turning a valve to shut off the supply of air? It seems simple and minute, but each step goes a long way towards reducing your overall air consumption and ultimately your energy costs.

Tyler Daniel, CCASS


Application Engineer
E-mail: TylerDaniel@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_TD

Image taken from the Best Practices for Compressed Air Systems Handbook, 2nd Edition

Compressed Air Efficiency! “Step One”

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

I’m currently in the closing process of selling my first home. This is the house I got married in, brought my first child home to. Needless to say there has been a lot going on to get the place up to selling shape, one of those things was getting the HVAC system checked out to verify its running correctly and efficiently! (Spoiler, mine was running very well thank goodness)

With compressed air being considered a fourth utility its important we check the efficiency of the system and fix issues and install upgrades where we can! EXAIR has six simple steps to optimize your compressed air system. Following these steps will help you to cut electrical costs, reduce overhead, and improve your bottom line. In this blog, I will cover the first step – Measure the air consumption to find sources that use a lot of compressed air.

EXAIR Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System

Data is important to have when diagnosing wasteful and problematic areas within your compressed air system. To measure air consumption, flow meters are used to find the volume or mass of compressed air per unit of time. Flow rates are very useful data points to find problems like leaks, over-use in blow-offs, waste calculations, and comparison analysis.

The first step to optimizing compressed air systems within an industrial facility is to get a known baseline. To do so, utilizing a digital flowmeter is an ideal solution that will easily install onto a hard pipe that will give live readouts of the compressed air usage for the line it is installed on.  There is also an additional feature that we offer on the Digital Flowmeters that can help further the understanding of the compressed air demands within a facility.

The Pressure Sensing Digital Flowmeters are available from 2″ Sched. 40 Iron Pipe up to 8″ Sched. 40 Iron Pipe.  As well as 2″ to 4″ Copper pipe.  These will read out and with the additional Data Logger or Wireless Capability options record the information. When coupled with the wireless capability an alarm can be set for pressure drops that give live updates on the system as well as permits data review to see system trends throughout the day.

Generating a pressure and consumption profile of a system can help to pinpoint energy wasters such as timer-based drains that are dumping every hour versus level based drains that only open when needed. A scenario similar to this was the cause of an entire production line shut down nearly every day of the week for a local facility until they installed flowmeters and were able to narrow the demand location down to a filter bag house with a faulty control for the cleaning cycle.

If you would like to discuss the best digital flowmeter for your system and to better understand the benefits of pressure sensing, please contact us.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS

Compressed Air Efficiency Results in Better Business!

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Time and time again we write about how compressed air is considered the fourth utility in a manufacturing setting. Compressed air is a great resource to use, however it needs to be used responsibly!

How you use it in your business is important, for a couple of key considerations:

The Cost of Compressed Air

Compressed air isn’t free.  Heck, it isn’t even cheap.  According to a Tip Sheet on the U.S. Department of Energy’s website, some companies estimate the cost of generation at $0.18 – $0.30 per 1,000 cubic feet of air.  A typical industrial air compressor will make 4-5 Standard Cubic Feet per Minute per horsepower.  Let’s be generous and assume that our 100HP compressor puts out 500 SCFM and is fully loaded 85% of the time over two shifts per day, five days a week:

500 SCFM X $0.18/1,000 SCF X 60 min/hr X 16 hr/day X 5 days/week X 52 weeks/year =

$22,464.00 estimated annual compressed air cost

So to minimize the compressed air use and the over all generation costs there are six easy steps to follow!

  1. Measure: the air consumption You must create a baseline to understand your demand requirements. How can you measure your improvements if you do not understand your total demand or baseline? Installing an EXAIR Flow Meter to your main air lines will help identify the amount of compressed air demand you have and help identify areas of concern.
  2. Find and fix leaks in the system: The repair of compressed air leaks is one of easiest ways to gain energy savings. In most cases all you need is a keen sense of hearing to locate a leak. Once a you have confirmed a leak then the make the necessary repairs. Harder to find leaks may require tools such as EXAIR’s Ultrasonic Leak Detector. This is a hand held high quality instrument that can be used to locate costly air leaks.
  3. Upgrade your blow off, cooling and drying operations: Updating your compressed air process tooling can save you energy and help you comply with OSHA noise and safety regulations. An example would be to replace old blow off or open pipe systems with EXAIR Safety Air Nozzles. Replacing open copper tubes or pipes can amount up to 80% air savings. You achieve lower sound levels and significant energy savings.
  4. Turn off the compressed air when it isn’t in use: It sounds obvious but how many times has an operator left for a break or lunch and doesn’t shut off the compressed air for his/her station? The minutes add up to a significant amount of time annually meaning there is opportunity for energy savings. The use of solenoid valves will help but EXAIR’s Electronic Flow Control (EFC) will dramatically reduce compressed air costs with the use of a photoelectric sensor and timing control.
  5. Use intermediate storage of compressed air near the point of use: The use of storage receivers can improve your overall system efficiency in a number of ways. For example, using a main air receiver at the compressor room can make load/unload compressor control more efficient. Localizing receiver tanks such as EXAIR’s 9500-60 sixty gallon receiver tank by the point of use for a high demand process will stabilize the demand fluctuations allowing a more fluid operation.
  6. Control the air pressure at the point of use to minimize air consumption: The use of pressure regulators will resolve this issue. Using regulators you can control the amount of air being processed at each point of use. EXAIR offers different sized pressure regulators depending upon your air line and process requirements. Regulating the compressed air to the minimum amount required and will reduce your overall demand resulting in annual savings and a payback schedule.

Health & Safety

Injuries and illnesses can be big expenses for business as well. Inefficient use of compressed air can be downright unsafe.  Open ended blow offs present serious hazards, if dead-ended…the pressurized (energized) flow can break the skin and cause a deadly air embolism.  Even some air nozzles that can’t be dead ended (see examples of cross-drilled nozzles on right) cause a different safety hazard, hearing loss due to noise exposure.  This is another case where EXAIR can help.  Not only are our Intelligent Compressed Air Products fully OSHA compliant in regard to dead end pressure, their efficient design also makes them much quieter than other devices.

Efficient use of compressed air can make a big difference in the workplace – not only to your financial bottom line, but to everyone’s safety, health, and livelihood.  If you’d like to find out more about how EXAIR can help, give me a call.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS

Adjustable Air Amplifiers: Versatile, Rugged, and EFFICIENT!

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Adjustability is a key feature for several EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products… for example our Adjustable Air Amplifiers.  The ‘adjustable’ part has to do with setting the air flow volume and force:

Just loosen the locking ring, and you can thread the plug out of, or in to, the body to increase, or decrease the flow and force of the developed flow.  There’s a hole in the plug (opposite the “EXAIR.com” stamp) so you can use a spanner wrench (another adjustable tool!) to thread the plug in or out.

You can get an amazing range of flow from a little twist*:

These are the performance values for a Model 6042 2″ Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifier with a compressed air supply pressure of 80psig. Regulating the pressure can give you even lower…or higher…flows.                                              *0.002″ to 0.010″ is about 1/4 turn of the plug.

A gap of about 0.010″ is about the max for 80psig supply pressure.  Above that, the air flow overwhelms the Coanda profile, creating a turbulent ‘storm’ in the throat, hampering the efficiency and effectiveness. The proper “adjustment” for that is to select the next larger Air Amplifier!

While the range of air flow is certainly impressive, their versatility is another major factor in their selection.  I reviewed our Application Database (registration required) for real-life details on Adjustable Air Amplifiers “in the field” and found a litany of other benefits that made them better suited to particular installations than a Super Air Amplifier:

  • A customer who builds automated equipment incorporates the Model 6031 1-1/4″ SS Adjustable Air Amplifier to blow open bags with a puff of air as they move into position on an automated filling machine. They use it because it’s available in stainless steel construction, and it’s still compact & lightweight.
  • A mattress manufacturer uses Model 6043 3″ Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifiers to cool mattress springs.  They’re lightweight, the perfect size to match the springs’ profile, and they can “dial them out” for high heat removal before putting springs on a rubber conveyor.
  • A tier 1 automotive supplier has Model 6234 4″ SS Adjustable Air Amplifier Kits installed on their robotic paint line to blow off moisture from parts to prevent water spotting between the wash cycle and the oven.  They use them because the stainless steel construction holds up to high heat due to the proximity to the ovens.
  • A food plant uses Model 6031 1-1/4″ SS Adjustable Air Amplifiers to improve the drying time of 3,000 liter mixers that must be washed between batches of different products.  The stainless steel construction holds up to the rigors of the frequent washdown in this area.
  • A bedding manufacturer replaced a regenerative blower with a Model 6041 1-1/4″ Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifier for trim removal on stitched fabric at bedding manufacturer.  The blower was prone to failure from lint & dust; the Air Amplifier, with no moving parts, is not.  It’s also compact, lightweight, and virtually maintenance free.
  • A light bulb manufacturer installed Model 6030 3/4″ SS Adjustable Air Amplifiers on the ends of open pipes that were used to cool mercury lamp wicks.  This reduced noise levels significantly while providing the same cooling rate, and the stainless steel construction holds up to the heat of the operation.

Because of the simplicity of their design, Adjustable Air Amplifiers are also extremely adaptable to custom applications.  We’ve added threads or flanges to the inlets and outlets of several different sizes, to accommodate ease of mounting & installation:

Among other custom Air Amplifiers, we’ve put (left to right) threads on the outlet, ANSI flanges on the inlet/outlet, Sanitary flanges on the inlet/outlet, and Sanitary on the inlet/ANSI on the outlet. How are you installing your Air Amplifier?

Adjustable Air Amplifiers are available in both aluminum and 303SS construction, to meet most any environmental requirements…except extreme high heat.  In those cases, the Model 121021 High Temperature Air Amplifier is rated to 700°F (374°C) – significantly higher than the Aluminum – 275°F (135°C) or the Stainless Steel – 400°F (204°C).  They’re commonly used to circulate hot air inside furnaces, ovens, refractories, etc.

A Model 121021 1-1/4″ High Temp Air Amplifier directs hot air to a rotational mold cavity for uniform wall thickness of the plastic part.

Adjustability.  Versatility.  Durability.  If you’d like to know more about the Adjustable Air Amplifier, or any of EXAIR’s Intelligent Compressed Air Products, give me a call.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS