When it comes to drawings and diagrams to map out a process system, the piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID) are a great way to situate and find components. They use different symbols to represent the type of products, the layout in the system, installation, and process flow. These standard symbols are created by ANSI or ISO. They are used in electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic processes. Since EXAIR has been manufacturing Intelligent Compressed Air Products since 1983, I will cover some pneumatic symbols and the process flow in this blog.
A colleague, Russ Bowman, wrote an article about “Knowing Your Symbols Is Key To Understanding Your Drawings”. As a reference, air compressors are the start of your pneumatic system, and there are different types as represented by the symbols below.
Air compressors are considered the fourth utility in industries because they use so much electricity; and they are inefficient. So, you need to use the compressed air as efficiently as possible. As a typical pneumatic system, the air compressors, receiver tanks and compressed air dryers would be on the supply side. The distribution system, or piping, connects the supply side to the demand side. This symbol is represented by a simple line. The demand side will have many different types of pneumatic devices. Since there are so many, ANSI or ISO has created some common types of equipment. But if there isn’t a symbol created to represent that part, the idea is to draw a basic shape and mark it.
As an example, if I were to do a P&ID diagram of the EXAIR Super Air Knife Kit; it would look like the above diagram. The kit will include the Super Air Knife with an Automatic Drain Filter Separator and a Pressure Regulator. The Filter Separator is a diamond shape and since it has an Automatic Drain, a triangle is placed at the bottom. Filter Separators are used to clean the compressed air and keep the Super Air Knife clean. The Automatic Drain will discard water and oil from the filter bowl when it accumulates over a float. The next item is the pressure regulator which is represented by a rectangle with an adjustment knob to “dial in” the desired blowing force. And at the end, we drew a rectangle, which does represent a Super Air Knife, as marked.
Using the P&ID diagram for the process flow is also important. You noticed that the Filter Separator will come before the Pressure Regulator. This is significant when installing this system. Remember the statement above about “using your compressed air as efficiently as possible”? Inefficiencies come from two basic areas; pressure drop and overusing your compressed air. Pressure drop is based on velocity. The lower the velocity, the lower the pressure drop. If the Filter Separator is placed after the Pressure Regulator, the lower pressure will increase the velocity. Since air expands at lower pressure, the volume of air will increase. And since the area of the compressed air pipe is the same, the velocity will have to increase. For the second part with overusing compressed air, the Pressure Regulator will help. You want to use the lowest amount of air pressure as possible for the Super Air Knife to “do the job”. The lower air pressure will use less compressed air in your operation.
EXAIR products are engineered to be safe, efficient, and effective in your compressed air system. If you need help to place them in your P&ID diagrams, an Application Engineer can help you. It is important to have the pneumatic devices in the proper place, and if you want to efficiently use your compressed air, you can use EXAIR products for your blow-off devices.
John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb
