Industrial Utility Efficiency

System Assessments

Operating the vacuum system at higher levels (then necessary) affects the needed volumetric flow to compensate for leaks. This required compensation of volume (ACFM) must be added to the nominal production flow demand. The ambient air leak into the system will expand to the highest vacuum level, which is known as the “Expansion Ratio.”

The Importance of Particle Velocity in Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying

In open end pipe line suspension flow, or dilute phase pneumatic conveying, proper particle velocity is critical to continuing productivity and product quality. Until recently, measurement of actual particle velocity within the pipe has not been practical outside the laboratory. The plant operating personnel depend on a much less accurate metric - estimating the conveying air velocity in the pipe and relating that to particle velocity.

Vacuum System Fundamentals for "Compressed Air People"

If you want to understand vacuum systems, you have to get out of the ruts, and slog through the mud and bounce over the rocks a bit.  If you’re a “compressed air person”, think outside the box for a few pages with me.  I am going to borrow some terms from the “pump people” to explain how vacuum systems are similar, yet different from compressed air systems. There are several ruts to get out of.  Remembering what changes and what doesn’t, what is controlled, and how to design systems for optimal energy consumption.

Optimizing Five Liquid Ring Vacuum Pumps on a Paper Machine

Industrial process operating loads and optimal set points are not usually accurately known at the time of design, so often there is significant mismatch between equipment and the process it serves. To overcome this uncertainty, designers typically oversize equipment. Over time, process changes and equipment efficiencies decline, so equipment might be operating less efficiently than at start-up. Or, equipment can be undersized, thereby hampering the entire system and causing other inefficiencies to compensate. For instance, too much steam usage in the dryer section of a paper machine can occur because of inadequate vacuum at the wet end.

Atlas Copco Screw Blowers Save Small Town Big Energy

The wastewater treatment plant in the Town of Hurlock, Maryland provides service to approximately 2,100 residences. However, the majority of the water treated comes from a nearby poultry processing plant, giving the plant influent a high organic content. That is why the Town of Hurlock replaced its two million-gallon-per-day (MGD) lagoon plant with a 1.65 MGD four-stage activated sludge facility ten years ago. After construction was completed, operating costs of the new plant were significantly higher than before. This meant the town had to get creative in order to keep costs down for their ratepayers.

Howden Roots DO Control System Optimizes Bird Island WWTP

Bird Island Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Buffalo, N.Y., had an inefficient aeration control system that, ironically, had been installed in 1998 as an efficiency upgrade. The operating principle was that air flow to all 32 of the plant’s aeration basins, or zones, would be properly controlled by an average of several Dissolved Oxygen (DO) level measurements taken by DO probes in a few of the basins. However, changes in tank loadings and physical dynamics, along with differences in oxygen transfer rates between diffuser grids, prevented a uniform air flow in the aeration zones.

DEKKER Optimizes Vacuum Hold-Down in CNC Routers

Vacuum chucks and holding devices have been used in many industries for a variety of purposes, from lifting packages to holding items for machining. With the introduction of CNC routing machine-tools for mass production (of wood furniture, plastics and other non-magnetic materials), there was a need to clamp-down large work pieces on the flat router tables. Mechanical clamping was not an option as it caused damage to the work pieces and didn’t satisfy the need to quickly place items on the table and clamp instantly.

Cabinet Manufacturer’s CNC Routing Tables Switch to a Centralized Vacuum System

Multiple vacuum pumps can be running mostly “dead-headed” in the many production systems that don’t require constant flow.  Any system that evacuates a small volume and then holds a product down while it is being machined, or sucks a bag shut to seal will spend the majority of its time not moving much mass of air.  This type of operation is found everywhere in secondary wood processing, machining, food packaging, and many other industries.  Anywhere vacuum is used as a motive force or to evacuate a small volume repeatedly.  This article will apply to any of these types of systems- and not apply to constant-flow vacuum applications in the process industries.

Austrian Furniture Producer Centralizes Vacuum Supply

ADA Möbelfabrik, headquartered in Anger, Austria, is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of furniture. Upholstered furniture, beds, mattresses and slatted frames are produced for the Austrian market and for many other European countries in two shifts, using modern manufacturing techniques. The vacuum supply required for securing items to the CNC machining centers is provided via a central vacuum plant produced by Busch. By opting for this vacuum system, ADA has integrated an extremely economical and reliable vacuum supply into the production process.

Vacuum Cooling Reduces Waste in Postharvest Cold Chain Systems

During the summer season, vegetables tend to deteriorate quickly once harvested from the field—or during postharvest stage of the cold chain. In traditional cold chain systems, vegetables are put into a chilled cooler for preservation, a process that requires approximately 12 hours for the product to achieve proper temperature. In some instances, as much as 25 percent of food product in the chilled cooler will decay before arriving at a proper storage area. Fortunately, there is a process for improving the effectiveness of the postharvest stage—vacuum cooling.

Packaging Printer Ink Dryer Audit Optimizes Low-Pressure System

Compressed air audits are valuable exercises on significant energy users in a plant.  Often done on main compressed air systems, these studies are also valuable on secondary systems, like dedicated low pressure circuits that feed production machinery.  An audit of such a system turned up some surprising results on a process that was initially thought to be very efficient.

Blow-off Air

A metal producer, in the Midwest, spends an estimated $2.4 million annually on electricity to

Blower Controls

The capacity and pressure requirements of blowers in a Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) are

Conveying

In open end pipe line suspension flow, or dilute phase pneumatic conveying, proper particle

Piping/Pressure Loss

Pressure/Vacuum

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the uses for receiver tanks for positive pressure systems

Vacuum Controls

In the world of semiconductor manufacturing, it’s an understatement to say peak productivity and

Vacuum Generation

Autonomous Mobile Robots and Automated Guided Vehicles can automate receiving and unloading,