System Assessments

Thought Leaders on System Optimization Past & Future

Edited by Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

We asked a hand-selected list of original equipment manufacturers, independent compressed air system sales and service companies, manufacturing plants and independent system auditors to share their thoughts, highlighting the changes they’ve seen over the past 20 years, then predicting what the next 20 years will bring.

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Managing Dust Collectors in Cement Production

By Hank van Ormer, Air Power USA

Cement production facilities have a significant number of dust collectors. Many have continuing problems with short bag life and low-pressure problems at the further points from the central air system. They often run on timers. When they try to run on demand control, they often get extreme short cycling, which causes even more bag problems. Most have gauges at the entry, on at least half of the dust collectors, and the compressed air feed lines are always the same size as the connector opening. This article reviews where these problems come from and provides some troubleshooting ideas.

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Reducing Your Leak Rate Without Repairing Leaks

By Chris E. Beals, President of Air System Management, Inc.

As plant personnel know, repairing compressed air leaks can be an expensive, labor intensive and never-ending process. This article discusses ways plant personnel can reduce and maintain their leak rate at a lower level without repairing leaks. It discusses how pressure/flow controllers, variable speed and variable displacement compressors, automation, and addressing critical plant pressures allow plant personnel to lower the header pressure, which eliminates artificial demand and controls the leak rate. More importantly, the article brings a new dimension to the idea of turning off the air to idle equipment by focusing plant personnel’s attention on the idle time within the cycle of operating equipment.

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Four Areas to Look for Energy Savings in Compressed Air Systems

By Hank van Ormer, Air Power USA

Compressed air is often overlooked in energy studies. For those willing to look, however, it is a land of opportunity. Since it takes about 8 hp of electrical energy to produce 1 hp worth of work with compressed air, it is also particularly rewarding to evaluate and optimize the compressed air system in your facility. In this article, we evaluate four specific areas of a compressed air system that can provide significant energy savings.

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Maximizing Dust Collection System Efficiency

By Hank van Ormer, Air Power USA

In this article, we review the operating principles of both basic types of pulse-jet dust collectors — bag (sock), and reverse flow filter. We then examine the effects of various installation and accessory selection issues through several case studies, providing examples of how to fix the issues and optimize the system’s compressed air use.

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Vale Thompson Turbo Compressor Upgrades

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

Vale in Thompson, Manitoba, Canada has reconfigured a system of large turbo compressors in their mining, milling, smelting and refining operation and gained very large energy savings through a series of improvement projects. In addition, these projects qualified for some significant financial incentives from their local power utility. Vale is a large multinational mining company with headquarters in Brazil. Vale operations focus on the production of iron ore, coal, fertilizers, copper and nickel. The Thompson Manitoba operations consist of mining, smelting, milling, and refining of Nickel in the 250 acre complex that employs 1,500 people.

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The Challenges of Auditing Compressed Air in Chemical and Petrochemical Plants

By Paul Edwards, President, Compressed Air Consultants, Inc.

Compressed air audits for chemical and petrochemical plants have many characteristics in common with audits in other industries, but there are some differences in the way these businesses run that impact the goals of the typical audit and how that audit is conducted. In chemical and petrochemical facilities, the reason for auditing the demand side is different than that of other industries. Additionally, there are frequently applications with opportunities for improvement that are not always seen in other industries.

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A Systems Approach Helps Rockline Industries Retrofit a Compressed Air System

By Andrew Chase Harding, P.E., CEM, and Darin Nutter, Ph.D., P.E., Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Arkansas

Rockline Industries is one of the largest global producers of consumer products, specializing in wet wipes and coffee filters. The company contacted the Arkansas Industrial Energy Clearinghouse after identifying that the compressed air system in their Springdale, Arkansas facility was a potential source of significant savings. Experts from the Clearinghouse then began working with Rockline Industries, representatives of the electric utility, and a local compressed air vendor to perform a complete evaluation of the system.

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Growing Factory Experiences Air Compressor Control-Gap Issues

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

A factory expanded their production facilities in response to a new product line being introduced in their plant. The plant was to run as a separate entity with its own utility services. Because this company is very conscientious about their energy consumption, they specified top-of-the-line compressed air production equipment to keep their costs low while maintaining the very clean air quality required by their product. This equipment should have worked wonderfully. Unfortunately, events transpired, and poor decisions were made that pushed their system out of control, resulting in unexpected inefficient compressor operation and higher-than-desired energy consumption.

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The Final Cost is Determined by How Compressed Air is Used

By Bob Wilson, Pemco Services

Corporate announces it is participating in the ISO 50001 Energy Management certification program and issues the edict to all itsmanufacturingfacilitiesto come up with plan to reduce energy consumption by 25%. Plant management calls a meeting to discuss how this ambitious goal can be met. Since energy is one of the largest controllable components in a compressed air system, the group decides to start there. Arecentsupply side assessment conducted in conjunction with a compressed air specialist confirmed the compressors are energy hogs. Based upon the analytical simulation run by the specialist, a recommendation was made to upgrade the compressor network with a System Master Control. The project is moving forward making it good starting point in the overall energy reduction plan. What next?

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Acrylon Plastics Optimizes Compressed Air Supply

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

Acrylon Plastics located in Winkler, Manitoba, Canada manufactures an extensive variety of custom plastic parts for a wide range of end use applications. Years ago changes to their production volumes increased the compressed air flows to above what their compressed air system could deliver. As a result the plant pressure would fall to low levels during production peak demands, which negatively affected sensitive compressed air powered machines. In addition to this during light plant loading conditions the air compressors would run inefficiently. Plant personnel tried a variety of strategies to deal with the plant peaks, with the most efficient solution coming as a result of installing VSD style compressors and pressure/flow control.

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