Industrial Utility Efficiency

Air Compressors

Best Practices 2024 EXPO & Conference Show Report

By Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, and Brooke Jones, Digital Content Editor, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine 

From October 29-31, 2024, professionals who operate, maintain and design industrial compressed air, vacuum, blower, nitrogen generation, process cooling and HVAC systems gathered at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, GA, for the 6th annual Best Practices 2024 EXPO & Conference. The event featured two tracks of conference presentations and panels.

Read Full Story

Matching the Supply and Demand in a Compressed Air System

By Bob Wilson, PEMCO Services for the Compressed Air Challenge®

Production processes get their energy from the air stored at higher pressure in the piping distribution system. The air compressors simply replenish the air that is consumed. It is an important distinction to make. The energy input in compressing the air is supplied to the connecting pipes for delivery to the various demands throughout the facility.
[ Read Full Story ]

Oil-free Booster Compressors Aid Pharmaceutical Packaging

By Robert James and Matt Logan, Hycomp, Inc.

In the realm of pharmaceutical production and packaging, the two most important factors with compressed air are reliability and quality. In pharmaceutical plants, our customers have emphasized this reoccurring theme over and over to paint the clear picture that reliable and high-quality air are king.
[ Read Full Story ]

Real-World $mart Sequencer® Controls

By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices®

The \$mart Sequencer® is an air compressor control system designed to reduce a plant’s energy costs by continuously monitoring system demand and automatically selecting the most energy efficient combination of available air compressors.
[ Read Full Story ]

Compressed Air Controls

Excerpted and submitted by Ron Marshall and Bill Scales for the Compressed Air Challenge®

Compressed air system controls match the compressed air supply with system demand and are one of the most important determinants of overall system energy efficiency. This article discusses both individual compressor control and overall system control of plants with multiple compressors. Proper control is essential to efficient system operation and high performance.  
[ Read Full Story ]

Compressor Sequencer Problems and Solutions

Tim Dugan, P.E., President, Compression Engineering Corporation

The goals of this article are to show why sequencers often have problems, and to demonstrate how avoid problems by proper system integration and controls design.
[ Read Full Story ]

Starting a Long Distance Relationship with Your Compressed Air System

By: James Green, Product Marketing Manager and Jay Johnson, Portfolio Manager for Controls & Automation , Ingersoll Rand Industrial Technologies

When was the last time you visited your compressor room? A week ago? Several weeks ago? If you are like many, you went in for the last scheduled maintenance interval and have rarely been back since. Air compressors, dryers and other air system components have become more reliable and self sustaining from a maintenance standpoint with each generation, requiring less and less human intervention.
[ Read Full Story ]

Demand Versus Supply, Parts l and ll

By Scot Foss, Air’s a Gas Inc.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the cause and effect that can occur when you reduce demand with no supply changes and the alternative which will produce positive, long term results which you can take to the bank.
[ Read Full Story ]

Mattei Dresses Up a Textile Compressed Air System

By Compressed Air Best Practices®

This textile plant uses compressed air in their knitting, sewing, and dye house operations and needed a system designed for the significant fluctuations in demand. Compressed air demand profiles were placed into four segments; 1st shift peak demand and minimum demand, and 2nd shift peak demand and minimum demand.
[ Read Full Story ]

DirectAIR® : Compressed Air as an Outsourced Utility

By Tim Tensing, Air Technologies

Compressed air systems are a source of power (a utility) present in virtually all manufacturing and process industries. What is unique about this utility is that facilities own the utility and are responsible for all the installation, generation, transmission, and maintenance costs of the compressed air system. Outsourcing compressed air as a utility, while not a new idea, is a growing trend in industry as service providers have increased their ability to meet customer expectations.
[ Read Full Story ]

Heat Recovery and Compressed Air Systems

By Frank Moskowitz for the Compressed Air Challenge®

It's simple physics that compressing air gives off heat. The heat energy is concentrated in the decreasing volume of air. To maintain proper operating temperatures, the compressor must transfer excess heat to a cooling media before the air goes out into the pipe system. As much as 90 percent of that heat can be recovered for use in your operation. If you can supplement or replace the electricity, gas or oil needed to create hot water for washrooms, or direct warm air into a workspace, warehouse, loading dock, or entryway, the savings can really add up.
[ Read Full Story ]