Application Spotlight! – Adjustable Air Amplifier Helps in a Messy Situation.

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 applicationsAir 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.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Cellophane wrapped Pastries courtesy of Anthony Easton via creative commons

The Case For Adjustable Air Amplifiers

EXAIR Air Amplifiers come in two designs:

  • Super Air Amplifiers come in sizes from 3/4″ to 8″ output flow, and have:
    • A 2-bolt mounting flange that is integral to the body (except the 8″ which has a cast-in handle and feet instead).
    • Replaceable shims to set the compressed air flow and hence, consistent performance.
    • Rugged, aluminum construction.
  • Adjustable Air Amplifiers come in sizes from 3/4″ to 4″ output flow and have:
    • Aluminum or 303SS construction.
    • 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.

The caller had an existing 4″ ID hose to place at the point of suction and connect to the Air Amplifier. This narrowed the choices down to the two Air Amplifier products with a 4″ outside diameter on the inlet: Model 120024 4″ Super Air Amplifier, and Model 6043 (or 6033) 3″ Aluminum (or Stainless Steel) Adjustable Air Amplifier. It was to be used in a typical shop environment, so the higher temperature rating (400F or 204C) or superior corrosion resistance of the Stainless Steel construction wasn’t needed. They intended to support it with the suction hose, hose-clamped onto the Air Amplifier itself, so the Super Air Amplifier’s 2-bolt mounting flange wasn’t necessary…in fact, they thought it might even get in the way. So, the Model 6043 3″ Aluminum Adjustable Air Amplifier made it to the top of the list pretty quickly.

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
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Super Air Amplifier Provides Needed Ventilation

Behold: The Power of the Microwave!!!
Behold: The Power of the Microwave!!!

Over the weekend, my wife and I were doing some “re-organizing” upstairs (actually throwing away some old toys and clothes), when our son decided to make a snack. I heard the pantry door close so I asked, “hey bud, what are you doing down there?”  He promptly replied, “I’m just making a snack dad. How long do you normally microwave my soup?” While we questioned making soup at 9:00 AM for a snack, I reluctantly replied 2 minutes and heard the microwave begin. Slowly, a strange (awful) odor started to fill the house so I went downstairs to investigate. To my horror, I opened the microwave door to discover that he wasn’t making a snack for him, he was actually heating up a can of dog food, so his partner in crime (our dog), “could have a warm meal like us”.  I immediately took the snack to the garbage outside and attempted to remove the stench from the house. I opened a couple windows and turned on the stove exhaust but this was still not working. That’s when I started thinking it sure would be nice to have a Super Air Amplifier handy, to help evacuate some of the odor and make the house livable again.

Using a small amount of compressed air, the Super Air Amplifier entrains a large volume of surrounding air and pulls this air through the unit, resulting in a high velocity, high volume of air on the exhaust side. The intake, or vacuum, side of the Super Air Amplifier pulls in 25 parts of surrounding air for every one part of compressed air. This high volume of ambient air being moved makes the Super Air Amplifier ideal for venting and exhaust applications.

Additionally, the vacuum and exhaust ends can be ducted, which makes this a good product for moving air from one place to another or from inside to outside. They are used in many applications for assisting air circulation and available in styles which are placed in ovens (and other high temp areas), corrosive environments, and remote locations. With the large volumes of air being moved, they are also an ideal choice where cooling and drying is required.

Our Air Amplifiers entrain enormous amounts of "free" air, at ratios of up to 25:1!
The Super Air Amplifier entrains large amounts of surrounding air, at ratios of up to 25:1.

Air Amplifiers are some of the most efficient products in the extensive EXAIR line of compressed air products. They use a patented internal shim to minimize air consumption and increase air volume on the output side. The operate exceptionally quiet, are OSHA safe and CE compliant.

If you have a ventilation or fume exhausting application, please contact an application engineer for assistance.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

 

Day 619 /365 – Radiation Burns, Jason Rogers  Link