Applications spotlights have become a great resource for our customers to “peak” behind the curtain. For this spotlight, let’s talk about Air Amplifiers and cellophane. Cellophane wrapping is a common mid-process way to protect products between steps in the manufacturing process. And even more often, to protect the final product.
When you unwrap the cellophane, it becomes pretty hard to dispose of, it can often be statically charged and not easily tossed in a garbage bin.
A recent customer came to us as they were removing thousands of products from their individual cellophane to bulk pack them for a big box store. This created a huge mess with mountains of trash as tall as the trash can and all over the floor.
Our suggestion was to use an Air Amplifier to carry the trash cellophane away from the unwrapping station to a trash bin with a filtered lid to trap the cellophane. We chose model 6043, 3″ Adjustable Air Amplifier. We chose this method as the Air Amplifier is designed to entrain a very large amount of air at its suction side, allowing the operator to simply get the cellophane near the suction point, and it would be pulled in with the surrounding air.
Mock up of how the station would look. The 6043 has a 3″ ID hose on the outlet that moves the blue cellophane 15 feet to a trash location. The operator in green would just have to get the plastic close and the Air Amplifier does the rest.
In addition to this application and ventilation/exhaust applications, Air Amplifiers can be used – just like our engineered Air Knives and Air Nozzles – as a useful solution for blow off, drying, cleaning, and cooling applications. If you’ve got questions about them (or any EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products), give me a call.
Quick adjustment by turning the exhaust end into or out of the body to infinitely set compressed air flow and hence, performance.
Super Air Amplifiers (left) can be easily installed using the 2-bolt mounting flange. Adjustable Air Amplifiers are compact & light enough to be supported by supply piping, even using a Swivel Fitting if you like.
Strictly considering air flow performance, there aren’t really any applications where one design will work, and the other won’t. Once the right size is determined, selection comes down to material of construction, how it’ll be installed, where it’ll be installed, and whether it’ll need to be quickly adjusted for flow & force on the device, instead of by regulating the compressed air supply.
I had the pleasure of talking to a caller just this morning about a “textbook” application for an Air Amplifier: welding smoke ventilation.
Maybe instead of a “textbook”, I should call it a “catalog” application because it’s literally the first image you see when you get to the Air Amplifiers section of the EXAIR Catalog.
Another important consideration for the caller was maximizing the exhaust flow. Looking at the performance data for the 4″ Super Air Amplifier and the 3″ Adjustable Air Amplifier, the latter generates just a little higher total air volume at the outlet, which, when you subtract the compressed air consumption from it, gives you the total flow rate of entrained air (and welding smoke, in this case):
The 730 SCFM Air Volume at Outlet, minus the air consumption of 29.2 SCFM, means that it’s drawing in ~700 SCFM. Which is not bad.
The 774 SCFM Air Volume at Outlet, minus the air consumption of 29.2 SCFM, means that it’s drawing in ~740 SCFM. Which is even better.
In addition to ventilation/exhaust applications, Air Amplifiers can be used – just like our engineered Air Knives and Air Nozzles – in blow off, drying, cleaning, and cooling applications. If you’ve got questions about them (or any EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air Products), give me a call.
Russ Bowman, CCASS
Application Engineer Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
Piping systems have been a hallmark of human civilization for almost as long as people have been living in community with each other. Evidence of complex earthen pipe systems, with flanged fittings & asphalt sealants, date to 2700 BC. These were used for crop irrigation, potable water distribution, and wastewater removal in ancient civilizations from the Mediterranean to the Far East.
Over the centuries, new ways to use pipe led to new ways to make pipe. Scientists and engineers figured out ways to make pipe stronger, lighter, cheaper, and in a variety of materials. One of the more recent milestones is the development of sanitary piping and fittings. The stringent cleanliness controls in certain industries (food and pharmaceutical, I’m looking at you) require highly corrosion resistant materials of construction. The inside & outside surfaces of the pipe have to be finely finished so that they can be thoroughly and positively cleaned, with no crevices, “nooks & crannies,” etc., for material to gather or cling. And since regular cleaning & sterilization is performed, the fittings must be able to be made & unmade in a manner that still provides for positive sealing when the system is restored to operation.
EXAIR Line Vac Air Operated Conveyors have always been well suited for applications like this. With their open, unobstructed throats and smooth bores, they’re intuitively easy to clean, by design. And we’ve made them, for years, in Type 316 Stainless Steel – the preferred material of construction for many food and pharmaceutical applications. Many users in these industries were able to install them in sanitary piping systems by welding the flanges on our Stainless Steel Line Vacs, or by installing adapters on our Threaded Stainless Steel Line Vacs.
In the spring of 2017, EXAIR released the Sanitary Flange Line Vac with those same users in mind – eliminating the need to weld or thread flanges onto existing products. They feature the same conveyance power as our Stainless Steel Line Vacs, and can even be modified to meet Heavy Duty Line Vac performance, if needed. There are four sizes: 1-1/2″, 2″, 2-1/2″, and 3″…which covers the most popular size range of sanitary pipe systems.
While the sanitary piping systems are certainly most often found in those cleanliness-critical food & pharma type applications, other users incorporate them because of the smooth, continuous bore of the pipe and fittings, as opposed to a threaded pipe system, where the OD of the pipe threads into the ID of the fittings, causing a “step” in the throughput. Because sanitary fittings mate via face-to-face flange seals, this eliminates that “step” which can make for a catch-point for certain items. It’s for this very reason that a popular ammunition manufacturer uses sanitary pipe systems to convey shell casings…because they tumble with such turbulence in the air flow, they are especially prone to hanging up on any kind of catch-point. So, they use sanitary piping & fittings, long radius elbows, and EXAIR Model 161150-316 1-1/2″ Sanitary Flange Line Vacs.
Air conveying of certain items, like these ammo shell casings, can be prone to clogging or jamming in systems where pipe, hose, and/or fittings are inserted into each other, creating catch-points.
EXAIR has a wide selection of engineered compressed air products that are “textbook” solutions for certain applications, but also make perfect sense for use in places you might not have thought of. If you have a bulk material conveyance operation you’d like to discuss, give me a call.
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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