Industrial Utility Efficiency

Instrumentation

Pressure Dew Point Monitoring: The Key to ISO 8573-1 Compliance

By Simon Gleissner, Managing Director, SUTO iTEC

The ISO 8573-1 standard defines clear limits for various compressed air quality parameters. This helps users classify their systems consistently, compare results across applications and set the right requirements for specific processes. This article explains the key points of the ISO 8573 standard and guides you through the correct way to measure and classify pressure dew point for compliance.

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Leveraging Data Acquisition to Drive Actionable Intelligence

By Sparks Dynamics

In most industrial plants, data is everywhere. It resides in flow through pipes, pressure in tanks, vibration on rotating equipment, temperatures in heat exchangers, and electrical energy power consumption in motors. If we can acquire this data and make sense out of the patterns we can take actions to make our plants more efficient and reliable.
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Measuring Performance of Installed Air Compressors

By Thomas Fischer, SUTO iTEC

Measuring the Free Air Delivery (FAD) of an air compressor can be challenging. With a proper flow meter and some mathematics this task is manageable. This article sheds some light on how to select the flow meter and summarizes parameters to be considered in the FAD measurement task.
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NMR Spectroscopy Lab Requires a -112°F Dew Point and Pure Nitrogen

By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

 

Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Mr. Warwick Rampley, the National Sales Manager for Sydney (Australia) based, Basil V.R. Greatrex Pty Ltd. It’s not every day one is asked to deliver a system able to provide both a reliable compressed air dew point of -80°C (-112°F) and high purity nitrogen.  We work with some excellent technology suppliers and have engineered a rather interesting system.  Although our firm was founded in 1919, this application is one of the most demanding we’ve encountered. Basil V.R. Greatrex is a unique company as we focus only on compressed air measurement, compressed air quality and compressed air efficiency.
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Managing Pressure Regulator Artificial Demand, Part 2

By Murray Nottle, Working Air System Engineer, The Carnot Group

This article defines different aspects of regulator design and how they affect air wasted by droop. Some ways to reduce droop have be shown and some special case situations discussed. By taking care with regulator selection and installation, regulators can save large amounts of air instead of wasting it.  
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The Importance of Bi-directional Compressed Air Flow Measurement

By Pascal van Putten, CEO, VPInstruments

Technology is available which enables a compressed air flow meter to measure not only the magnitude of the flow, but also the direction. Why is this important? In this article we will describe two case studies where bi-directional compressed air flow measurement plays a key role to come to the right conclusions. In the first case study, we will describe an electronics manufacturing plant, which has a large interconnected ring network with two air compressor rooms located in different buildings. The two air compressor rooms are about five hundred feet apart. In the second case study, the effect of compressed air flow measurement upstream of a local receiver tank is described.
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Managing Pressure Regulator Artificial Demand, Part 1

By Murray Nottle, Working Air System Engineer, The Carnot Group

Pressure regulators are everywhere compressed air is used. These simple devices, essential for safe and steady equipment operation, can be a big waster of compressed air. This article shows how with proper regulator selection, installation and setting management you can save compressed air and lower system pressures. This article looks at regulators on production equipment not central regulators or Process Flow Controllers.
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Compressed Air Demand-Side Demons at a PET Bottle-Blowing Plant

By Pete Rhoten, Air Engineering LLC. and Greg Fitzpatrick, Compressed Air Technologies, Inc.

Sometime in mid-2015, I received a call from a project engineer at a major plastics firm. He had a troubling issue with one of his PET bottle plants. The bottom line was this: They could not run all five high production blow-molding machines at one time—even though they were able to do so 18 months previously.
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Meat Processing Plant Drops Compressed Air Costs 60%

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

One of the statements made in the Compressed Air Challenge’s Fundamentals of Compressed Air Systems seminar is that improvements can always be made to every compressed air system, including new ones. The statement definitely applies to a Canadian pork processing facility built a few years ago. This article is based on a compressed air audit performed two years into the life of a brand new plant. The audit found numerous problems and made recommendations that helped reduce plant compressed air operating costs by 60 percent. 
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Ultrasonic Leak Detectors Help Dairy Producer Optimize Compressed Air System

A modern dairy without compressed air is nowadays no longer imaginable, and it is used primarily for driving control units and machinery. Approximately 60 percent of the compressed air generated is used for packaging lines. However, compressed air is one of the most expensive energy sources in dairies. Even in carefully maintained compressed air systems, about 20 percent of the generated energy is lost through leaks. In particular, vacuum leakages in separators result in high energy losses. A small leak can cost up to several thousands of Euros a year.
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What is In-Process Air Gauging?

By Chris Koehn, Air Gaging, LLC.

In recent years, we have seen an upward trend of higher production manufacturers wanting to integrate their air gauging quality checks from a stand-alone, outside-of-machine device where the operator is performing a manual check to an automated in-process gauge. There are several reasons for this trend, including higher quality standards, tighter tolerances, as well as running a leaner operation. The benefits are 100 percent inspection of the required geometric callout, as well as handshaking between measuring device and machine to make each piece better than the prior one. It also removes any bad parts.
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