McKenzie Compressed Air Solutions

A Growing Market for Oil Free Compressed Air

Posted on August 23, 2011 by admin

Over the past decade, there has been a growing market worldwide for oil-free compressed air – especially in the food, semiconductor, and pharmaceutical industries.

Applications are getting more sensitive to contaminants like hydrocarbons – which are very difficult to remove.

Production and quality engineers in industries like the food & beverage, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and chemical sectors have established internal specifications for oil-free compressed air. The product spoilage and safety issues at risk make oil-free compressed air an absolute necessity in certain processes.

Traditionally, activated carbon filters and towers (carbon absorbers) have been used to remove hydrocarbons. While these technologies do remove hydrocarbons, they are very dependent upon timely and frequent maintenance to maintain performance levels.

Another available technology transforms hydrocarbons, through total oxidation, to produce carbon dioxide and water. The heart of the system is the catalytic converter, a pressure-vessel filled with a catalytic granulate capable of “cracking” hydrocarbons. The catalytic converter ensures and guarantees the removal of all liquid oils and gaseous hydrocarbons as well as all bacteria and viruses from the compressed air stream. In addition, this type system has a recommended maintenance interval of 25,000 hours.

Treating the compressed air, regardless of the air compressor technology, is the only way to ensure oil-free compressed air, and many companies place the highest value on 100% oil-free compressed air – at all times.

Oil-free air compressors are vulnerable to the quality of ambient air conditions. Airborne hydrocarbons, in the 6-10 ppm range, are normal and these can go up to 16-24 ppm in an atmosphere exposed to vehicle exhaust or in an contaminated environment like for example an airport. In many cases, up to 30% of these hydrocarbons may be condensable. Manufacturing processes may also create hydrocarbon releases to atmosphere, which are then ingested by the oil-free air compressor.

Many factories install oil-free air compressors for 100% of their compressed air needs when in reality- only 40% of the compressed air needs to be truly oil-free. Engineers are recognizing this as an opportunity to reduce capital expenditures.

If 700 scfm out of 2,500 scfm needs to be oil-free, the catalytic converter type system is installed at the point of use. This allows the facility to invest significantly less capital in air compressors than if they went with oil-free for the whole facility.

How hydrocarbons are measured in a system is a key. Up until now, end users have not had a way of knowing what the hydrocarbon content was in their compressed air system. They had filters with alarm functions based upon time – but little more. They could send samples off to laboratories and wait to hear the results – while production continued. This was also not very satisfactory.

Now hydrocarbon monitoring systems are available and are designed specifically for compressed air systems. The monitoring technology provides real-time measurement and monitoring of hydrocarbons in compressed air systems.

Posted in Oil Free Air Compressors | Tagged champion, McKenzie Compressed Air Solutions, oil free air compressors, Quincy | Leave a comment

Sizing Your Compressed Air System

Posted on August 15, 2011 by admin

Any compressed air system must be controlled, regulated, and sized to ensure that an adequate volume of air, at a pressure and purity necessary to satisfy user requirements, is delivered to the most remote outlet during the period of heaviest anticipated use. Some safety factor must be also incorporated into the system to accommodate additional pressure drop for some period of extremely high use if appropriate for the facility.

Design Sequence

Locate and identify each process, workstation, or piece of equipment using compressed air.
Determine volume of air used at each location.
Determine pressure range required at each location.
Determine conditioning requirements for each item.
Establish how much time the individual tool or process will be in actual use for a specific period of time (duty cycle).
Establish the maximum number of locations that may be used simultaneously on each branch, main, and for the project as a whole (use factor).
Establish the extent of allowable leakage.
Establish any allowance for future expansion.
Make a preliminary piping layout and assign preliminary pressure drop.
Select the air compressor type, conditioning equipment, and air inlet locations making sure that consistent SCFM or ACFM is used for both the system and compressor capacity rating.
Produce a final piping layout and size the piping network

Piping System Design

Piping layout on the plans shall be reasonably complete, with checking for space, clearances, interference, and equipment drops. In order to use pressure drop tables, it is necessary to find the equivalent length of run from the compressor to the farthest point in the piping system. The reason for this is that the various pipe-sizing tables are developed for a pressure drop using friction loss for a given length of pipe.

Measuring the actual length is the first step. In addition, the affects of the fittings must be considered.
Determine the actual pressure drop that will occur only in the piping system. Generally accepted practice is to allow 10% of the proposed system pressure for pipe friction loss. It is a good practice to oversize distribution mains to allow for future growth as well as the addition of conditioning equipment.
Size the piping using the appropriate charts, having calculated the SCFM and the allowable friction loss in each section of the piping being sized.
The temperature used to calculate the friction loss is 60ºF (16ºC).

Tools and Charts

Sizing Tool: Depending on the flow and pressure drop required, choose your diameter. (values for a pressure of 8 bar -116 PSI – and 5% pressure drop).

Flow Calculator: Please contact us for your free download.

Posted in General Information | Tagged air audit, airflow, McKenzie Compressed Air Solutions, pressure drop | Leave a comment

Compressed Air Uses in Hydroelectric Power Plants

Posted on August 10, 2011 by admin

Worldwide, hydropower plants produce about 24 percent of the world’s electricity and supply more than 1 billion people with power. The world’s hydropower plants output a combined total of 675,000 megawatts, the energy equivalent of 3.6 billion barrels of oil, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. There are more than 2,000 hydropower plants operating in the United States, making hydropower the country’s largest renewable energy source.

A few of many advantages of hydropower are fuel is not burned so there is minimal pollution; water to run the power plant is provided free by nature; relatively low operations and maintenance costs; and technology is reliable and proven over time.

Typical hydroelectric power plant

Hydroelectric energy is produced by the force of falling water. The capacity to produce this energy is dependent on both the available flow and the height from which it falls. Building up behind a high dam, water accumulates potential energy. This is transformed into mechanical energy when the water rushes down the sluice and strikes the rotary blades of turbine. The turbine’s rotation spins electromagnets which generate current in stationary coils of wire. Finally, the current is put through a transformer where the voltage is increased for long distance transmission over power lines.

Pumped storage: Reusing water for peak electricity demand

Demand for electricity is not “flat” and constant. Demand goes up and down during the day, and overnight there is less need for electricity in homes, businesses, and other facilities. Hydroelectric plants are more efficient at providing for peak power demands during short periods than are fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants, and one way of doing that is by using “pumped storage”, which reuses the same water more than once.

Pumped storage is a method of keeping water in reserve for peak period power demands by pumping water that has already flowed through the turbines back up a storage pool above the power plant at a time when customer demand for energy is low, such as during the middle of the night. The water is then allowed to flow back through the turbine-generators at times when demand is high and a heavy load is placed on the system.

The reservoir acts much like a battery, storing power in the form of water when demands are low and producing maximum power during daily and seasonal peak periods. An advantage of pumped storage is that hydroelectric generating units are able to start up quickly and make rapid adjustments in output. They operate efficiently when used for one hour or several hours. Because pumped storage reservoirs are relatively small, construction costs are generally low compared with conventional hydropower facilities.

Hydroelectric Power Plant Compressed Air Applications:

In hydroelectric power plants, the mechanical energy of the water is converted into electrical current using turbines and generators connected to them. Given that the effective head varies; a distinction is made between low, medium and high-pressure power plants. Similarly, there are run-of-river plants as well as storage plants (including pumped-storage plants) depending on the way in which the available water is used.

What high pressure air compressors used for in hydroelectric power plants:

· Braking air for pneumatic brakes

· Adjusting turbine blades and large valves (e. g. governor)

· Blowing air (blowing out the water to eliminate the load during starting)

· Preventing pulsation and cavitation

Posted in General Information | Tagged champion, hydroelectric, McKenzie Compressed Air Solutions, Quincy | Leave a comment

US Manufacturing Expands at Slowest Pace in 2 Years

Posted on August 5, 2011 by admin

Manufacturers in the U.S. had their weakest growth in two years last month, as new orders shrank for the first time since the recession officially ended, according to a survey of the nation’s supply executives.

Activity at manufacturing firms in the United States was flat in July, falling to its lowest reading in two years, according to the Institute of Supply Management (ISM). The ISM’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell from 55.3 in June to 50.9 last month. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

“Manufacturing posted very strong growth from January to April, but the pace of growth has decelerated markedly since that time and appears to have nearly flattened out by July,” according to Daniel J. Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. “Some of the late spring and early summer doldrums were caused by supply chain issues related to getting automotive and semiconductor imports from Japan, and transportation delays due to spring flooding in the Midwest. But the underlying problem is that the economy is growing very slowly.”

Last month’s PMI was the lowest reading since June 2009, one month after the recession officially ended.

The ISM report showed new orders contracted for the first time since June 2009, falling to 49.2 from 51.6. Of the 18 manufacturing industries tracked by ISM, half reported decreases in new orders last month.

Production and employment showed continued growth in July, but at slower rates than in June. Production growth slowed to 52.3 from 54.5 in July, while ISM’s employment index registered 53.5 last month, 6.4 points below June’s index but nonetheless indicating growth.

“Businesses have cut back on orders and employment because they are just not seeing the demand that they expected,” John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC, told Bloomberg News. “The economy is just not picking up momentum in the second half.”

Concerns over demand likely spurred businesses to slow down on stockpiling, and inventories contracted after expanding in June. The inventories index registered 49.3 in July, 4.8 points below the 54.1 figure reported in June.

Prices paid by manufacturers also grew more slowly in July, dropping 9 points in July to 59. This marked the 25th consecutive month the prices index has registered above 50.

“In the last three months combined, the Prices Index has declined by 26.5 percentage points, dropping from 85.5 percent in April to 59 percent in July,” Holcomb said.

However, exports and imports both grew faster, and several executives surveyed by the ISM noted that export demand remained “strong.” ISM’s index of new export orders registered 54 in July, up slightly from 53.5 in June and marking the 25th consecutive month of growth in the index. Imports of materials by manufacturers registered 53.5, 2.5 points higher than the corresponding figure reported in June. This is the 23rd consecutive month of growth in imports.

Analysts had pinned the slowdown on temporary factors, but signs of a significant pickup are proving elusive.

The Financial Times reports that while many companies continued to report strong results in the second quarter, there are growing indications of a global industrial slowdown. Analysts described the second half of 2011 as a mixed bag, with some manufacturers continuing to see strong sales while others are hampered by slowing orders. Consumer demand could remain weak, while companies relying on industrial demand may be in a better position.

“Although the ISM report is gloomy, we expect manufacturing activity to improve,” Meckstroth wrote. “Motor vehicle production schedules are increasing as parts are more available and inventories remain low. In addition, business equipment spending has been, and is expected to remain, relatively strong. Profits are high and firms are willing to invest to upgrade their operations to take advantage of accelerated depreciation.”

McKenzie is one of the the leading distributors of Quincy compressed air equipment and parts in the United States.

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Defining “American Made”

Posted on August 3, 2011 by admin

“Buy American” is back on the agenda in Washington. Yet buying American-made products has become an ambiguous, complicated challenge.

“Today, steel, cement, automobile and machinery companies – including air compressors – exist in a borderless world. Mexican cement companies own U.S. plants,” the Americas Society and Council of the Americas.

For example, automobiles ‘manufactured’ in the U.S. have crossed borders numerous times during their assembly. Today in terms of ownership, production and inputs, we are too intertwined to define what is U.S. and what is other.

“Once you put down the flags and shut off all the television ads with their Heartland, apple-pie America imagery, the truth of the car business is that it transcends national boundaries,” the Wall Street Journal recently noted. “A car or truck sold by a ‘Detroit’ automaker such as General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. or Chrysler Group could be less American — as defined by the government’s standards for ‘domestic content’ — than a car sold by Toyota, Honda or Nissan — all of which have substantial assembly and components operations in the U.S.”

Economists Thomas H. Klier and James M. Rubenstein indicate that, as of the year prior, about 25 percent of automobile parts used in the U.S. were imported, and approximately another 25 percent were produced by U.S.-based operations of foreign parts makers.

Among the 58 models with NHTSA ratings of 75 percent or higher, foreign-based automakers produce only eight. Detroit automakers, on the other hand, produce a mere 24 of the 140 models with domestic content ratings of 10 percent or less.

Are Jobs Driving the Difference?

A 2006 study by a group established by Big Three retirees in Washington, estimated the number of jobs each automaker’s domestic parts purchases supported. Level Field found that domestic manufacturers’ share of total automaker jobs in 2006 was 76 percent, and that every 1,000 vehicles sold by the Detroit Three in the U.S. supported more than twice as many jobs as 1,000 vehicles sold by foreign nameplates.

Detroit automakers directly employed 239,341 people in the U.S. at the end of 2007. At the same time, foreign producers employed about 113,000 U.S. employees.

Foreign car manufacturers generate billions of dollars in jobs, not to mention community infrastructure, in the U.S., but there is a difference between Detroit’s economic footprint and that of its foreign rivals.

Level Field has said that investment in research, design, engineering and management is what’s driving the difference in jobs.

Now, as proponents argue that the “buy American” purchasing restrictions in the economic stimulus package are essential — to ensure that the billions spent by the U.S. government to revive the economy and boost employment actually go to U.S. companies — and as critics respond — saying the restrictions would only delay crucial work and impose onerous layers of bureaucracy on what is already likely to be a cumbersome contracting process — it’s worth noting that similar measures have been adopted or considered in Argentina, China, Indonesia, Ecuador, India, Russia and Vietnam.

Most manufacturers today look at the world as a contiguous global world. Because of that, it’s just a hugely different world from what we’ve seen in the past, and decisions are made now on global rules instead of just domestic rules.