Technology

Utilities have been cleaning their boilers for many years using either steam or high-pressure air.  In the past, when air was used, due to the size of the boilers and the reasonable quality of fuel used, a relatively small amount of cleaning was required.

In February of 2008, a sugar plant near Savannah, Georgia suffered the ultimate tragedy. Fouteen employees were killed and 40 injured when finely ground motes of sugar dust ignited, setting off a violent blast. If the fatalities and a tarnished reputation weren’t enough, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) then fined the company more than 8 million dollars in workplace violations related to combustible dust.

Safety is the driving force in the determination of minimum recommended supply wire sizes for variable speed compressor packages.  With this in mind, all wire size recommendations should be based on meeting, or exceeding, the minimum requirements of the National Electrical Code (NEC).

Pneumatic system overhaul for furniture machining center yields high-precision results for a perfect, polished finish.

Relatively few people realize that for a variety of industrial manufacturing applications, from air knife drying to simple blow-off nozzles, the use of high pressure compressed air that bleeds into the atmosphere represents a significant waste of energy.  

With all of the different LEED credits and associated M&V requirements and tax incentive opportunities for businesses to reduce energy consumption, we have seen an increasing demand for metering. Companies are looking for more ways to estimate cost savings and prove that their energy saving investments are working.

This steel processing facility has been operating for over one hundred years.  This facility is part of a large corporation with numerous plants around the world.  This audit focused on the compressed air system on one side of the Works which we will call the “North Plant”.

Compressed Air Practices interviewed Mark McKean (National Sales Manager) from Prevost Corporation.

Motor Coach Industries, headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, is the largest manufacturer of intercity tour coaches for the tour, charter, line-haul, scheduled service, commuter transit and conversion markets in the U.S. and Canada. The company operates a four screw-type air compressor system at its Clarence Avenue plant in Winnipeg. To maintain adequate system pressure at the plant, Motor Coach was forced to run all four compressors 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Nearly all vacuum pumping technologies have some degree of sensitivity to inlet particulate contamination.  Since everything from a vacuum assisted production process ends up at the inlet of the vacuum pump, it is important to figure out how to best protect the pump in that particular environment.  In many cases, the expected service life of a vacuum pump comes down to how well it is protected from incoming contamination.