Air Amplifiers are amazing tools that pack a punch (if the punch is a ton of air flow). Imagine an amplification rate up to 25 times. You supply 29 SCFM and yield 730 SCFM coming out? It’s incredible. These little beauties work by flowing compressed air (80psig) through the inlet to the annular chamber. It is then throttled through a small ring nozzle at a high velocity. This Airstream employs the Coanda profile directing all this air to the outlet. Although you should never blow air at a person, a little bit of air input, would easily produce the results to the right!
Why would you use these? See below for starters:
Although we have many options to choose from, sometimes you may need something outside the box. Maybe it’s a different size? A different Material? A different fitting? Ask us we do have many ways to customize this product. Here are 3 examples of things we have done in the past.
The High Temp Air Amplifier (right) was developed for moving hot air to surface needing uniform heating while in a furnace or oven. This is designed for temps up to 700°F, and is now a standard offering in 1 1/4″.
Another example of a “Special” Air Amplifier is a stainless steel version with a flange mount (left). This was designed for exhausting flue gases from a furnace. If there were a power failure, this Special Air Amplifier will quickly evacuate harmful fumes, prior to affecting the workers.
A third “Special” was made when we were brought an application that required a sticky material to be pulled through the Air Amplifier, and it was unable to stick to the inside of the Amplifier. So we developed an Adjustable Air Amplifier with e PTFE Plug (Right), so the material would not stick.
If you have an application that requires a tool that is not quite in line with what we offer, don’t hesitate to reach out. I can’t promise you that we will be able to make it for you, but I can promise you that we will look at it and give it our best shot.
Thank you for stopping by,
Brian Wages
Application Engineer EXAIR Corporation Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter
EXAIR uses the word entrainment a lot, all of our blowoff products use the principle to amplify the air stream and increase efficiency. But, what is entrainment and what causes the phenomenon? Entrainment can be defined as a fluid that is swept along into an existing moving fluid. This brings Bernoulli’s equation into the picture. When looking at specific situations and conditions Bernoulli’s equation can show some interesting significance with gases.
Bernoulli’s Equation
Bernoulli’s equation takes into account four main variables which are Pressure (P), Density (r), Velocity (v), and a height difference (z); along with a single constant for gravity. you can see the relationship between the velocity squared and the pressure from the equation above. Being that this relationship is a constant along the streamline; when the velocity increases; the pressure has to come down. Now we have to look at how fluids like to behave. Fluids within a system like to be at a constant pressure when at the same height and reach a state of equilibrium. This means that fluids will always flow towards a low pressure area, which means that if you create a constant low pressure area you can amplify the air stream. This is the same principle as to why airplanes can fly.
EXAIR Super Air Nozzle entrainment
Since compressed air can be an expensive utility, it is good to minimize it and maximize the surrounding entrained air. Therefore we have designed our products to use this entrainment principle to amplify the air blast while using less compressed air and more entrained ambient air. Products like our Super Air Knife can see an amplification ratio (ambient air to compressed air) of up to 40:1; this means for every 1 SCFM of compressed air used we are entraining 40 SCFM of ambient air.
EXAIR’s Super Air Knife
We use this principle for our Air Amplifiers, Air Knifes, Air Nozzles and Jets, Safety Air Guns, and our Gen4 Static Eliminators. Our goal is to save you money and give you better results in the process.
If you have questions about any of our engineered Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR or any Application Engineer.
Cody Biehle Application Engineer EXAIR Corporation Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
So, you have found yourself with a little bit of a conundrum. You need to cool a part but don’t know where to start and there are so many different options to choose from. In most cases when it comes to cooling with compressed air there are two different paths you can take. First is using a large volume of air at room temperature to blow across the surface area of the product. The other option is to use cold air from a vortex tube to drop the part’s temperature. In most case a large volume of air can be used to cool things down to relatively cooler temperatures; think cooling a cup of coffee using your breath. The issue you run into is when the temperature of the room air gets closer to the temperature you want to achieve in the end. In other words, when the temperature difference between your cooling air and your desired end temperature is small there is less cooling taking place with that same volume of air.
Mini Spot Cooler cooling down a bit used in milling plastic
This can be explained by looking at the cooling power formula:
Btu/hr = 1.0746*(CFM)*(Delta T)
In this case the Delta T is the difference between the temperature that you want to cool the product down to and the temperature of the air. This means the smaller the delta T is the higher the CFM flow will need to be to counteract the effect of the temperatures are so close to one another. Here are some examples of cooling a product and you are providing 1000 CFM of air to cool it.
Btu/hr = 1.0746*(1000 CFM)*(150F – 130F)
Btu/hr = 21,492 Btu/hr
Btu/hr = 1.0746*(1000 CFM)*(150F – 100F)
Btu/hr = 53,730 Btu/hr
As you can see the closer the Delta T is to 0 the less Btu/hr you get. Getting this kind of CFM flow is easy if you use something like EXAIR’s Super Air Knife or Super Air Amplifier. These systems take a small amount of compressed air and entrain the surrounding ambient air to increase the volume to a large blast. Take a look at model number 120022 which is the 2” Super Air Amplifier, this unit can produce 1,023 CFM while only using 15.5 CFM at 80 psig. But when you get close to cooling the temperature down to that room temperature or below it gets much harder; which only means that the temperature of the air being used to cool needs to be dropped. Dropping the air temperature can only be accomplished by using outside means like air coolers or in this case EXAIR’s Vortex Tubes and Spot Coolers.
EXAIR Air Amplifiers use a small amount of compressed air to create a tremendous amount of air flow.
Vortex Tubes and Spot coolers have some limitations. Generally they are not thought of products that produce large volumes of air (even though we make them up to 150 SCFM). And they are best suited for smaller areas of cooling, spot cooling, if you will. However, EXAIR Vortex Tubes do have one key feature that can help compensate for the lack of volume. LOW TEMPERATURE! The vortex tube can produce temperatures lower than 0F while stile retaining a good portion of air volume from the inlet.
Sub-zero air flow with no moving parts. 3400 Series Vortex Tubes from EXAIR.
For example, let’s look at model number 3240 running at 100 psig with 70% of the air from the inlet exiting the cold side (aka 70% cold fraction). At 100 psig the 3240 will use 40 SCFM at the air inlet and will have a temperature drop of 71F. If the compressed air has a temperature of 70F that means you will be seeing a temperature of -1F. Also, when using the 70% cold fraction you will see 28 SCFM of cold air flow. Now let’s plug those numbers into the cooling power formula.
Btu/hr = 1.0746*(28 CFM)*(150F + 1F)
Btu/hr = 4543 Btu/hr
As you can see, using a small amount of compressed air you can still net you a good amount of cooling if the temperature is lower. All in all, the best option for cooling products down to temperatures that are above ambient temperatures is something that can produce a large volume of air. For small areas that require cooling the product down to temperatures to ambient temperature and below, use EXAIR’s Vortex Tube.
If you have questions about our Air Amplifiers and Vortex Tubes, or would like to talk about any of the quiet EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR or any Application Engineer.
Cody Biehle Application Engineer EXAIR Corporation Visit us on the Web Follow me on Twitter Like us on Facebook
You can build in flexibility when purchasing Super Air Nozzles, Air Knives, Safety Air Guns and other products from EXAIR. Consider adding our Stay Set Hoses and Magnet Bases to create flexibility and ease of set-up to your process. These accessories will improve your project and reduce your set-up time.
EXAIR has a variety of lengths in our Stay Set Hoses ranging from 6″ up to 36″ in 1/4 MNPT x 1/8 FNPT or 1/4 MNPT x 1/4 MNPT fittings. The Stay Set hoses are used mainly where frequent repositioning is required. You can bend and the hose to your desired position and since the hose has “memory” it will not creep or bend. It will keep this position until physically moved to the next position. These hoses can withstand temperatures up to 158 F (70C).
EXAIR Magnet Bases can be used when frequent movement of air product is required. These powerful magnets permit horizontal or vertical mounting. A valve is used to vary force and flow. The choice of single outlet, dual outlet and Swivel are available.
The combination of our Stay Set Hoses and Magnet Bases will accommodate Air Nozzles and Jets along with our smaller Air Knives, Air Wipes, Super Air Amplifiers and can also be assembled to our Safety Air Guns. There are many uses for our Stay Set Hoses and Magnet bases. While purchasing our Intelligent Compressed Air products consider all of our accessories to help your projects. If you have an application and have questions please contact EXAIR and one of our Application Engineers to answer your questions.
