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.”

Visual Leak Detection on Vacuum Systems

An envelope manufacturer is upgrading their vacuum system to include a new VSD controlled pump. As part of the preparation for the installation, an energy baseline was developed, and leakage survey conducted. The auditor used a newly developed acoustic imaging camera as well as a basic ultrasonic leak detector gun. This article describes what was found and some of the challenges faced in detecting leaks in a busy plant.

Paper Machine Vacuum Systems: Liquid Rings vs. Blowers

A paper machine carefully removes water from the paper sheet. Some of this water removal is done by passing air through the sheet, thus moving the water from the sheet to the wire. Air is moved by creating a pressure differential across the sheet. This is normally done by putting the sheet on a wire and then putting a box under the wire and then evacuating the air from the box. The resistance of the air movement through the sheet and wire causes the pressure drop from the machine room to the box. 

Considerations for Sizing Vacuum Pumps in High Humidity Applications

Many of us are familiar with sizing vacuum pumps based on throughput, process pressure requirements, chamber size, pump down times, conductance and leakage. In a lot of cases, humidity becomes an afterthought and unexpected things happen. Some of these unexpected things we learn to live with, like emulsified oil. In other cases, the unexpected things prevent the pump from performing the job it was intended for. 

Measuring Blower Airflow in the Field

Most electric utilities offer customer incentives for implementing energy conservation measures (ECMs) Incentive programs pay customers to use less energy. In some cases they are mandated by legislation and in others the incentives are driven by the utility’s desire to avoid building new generating capacity. Some incentives are based on reduced energy use (kWh) and some are based on lower peak demand (kW).

Rethinking Aerobic Digestion Resolves Frustrations, Improves Performance, and Saves Money

Aerobic digestion is a common treatment technology used at small-to medium-sized wastewater treatment plants for the treatment of waste activated sludge (WAS). The objective of aerobic digestion is to treat the sludge for disposal, and for those trying to meet Class B biosolids, further reduce volatile solids (VS) and pathogens to ensure the sludge is suitable for land application.

Blower Upgrade Saves Fraser Colorado Wastewater Treatment Plant Energy Costs

When the plant’s original aeration blowers became costly to operate and newer technology offered the promise of energy-savings, Fuqua took decisive action and replaced the older blowers with high-speed turbo blowers. As a result, the plant saves ratepayers approximately $30,000 per year in energy costs and bolsters the plant’s ability to maintain uptime and achieve extremely clean effluent.  

Positive Displacement Blower and Vacuum Booster Lubricants

You have your equipment, everything is set up and ready to run, but what about your lubricants? Too often, lubricants receive little attention with respect to their use in rotating equipment. Even the most reliable cars in the world will encounter problems on a short commute if the wrong transmission fluid is used during a flush. The same is true with your Positive Displacement (PD) blower or vacuum booster that operates around the clock. In our experience, approximately 80% of all bearing and gear failures are the result of improper lubrication.

Leveraging Rental Blowers for Pneumatic Conveying Applications

Pneumatic conveying applications are critical to many facilities – when you can’t move material you can’t make or sell your product. Because of a historical lack of availability of specialized rental blowers and air compressors for pneumatic conveying, plants often either accepted the production outage or rented a more readily available two-stage, oil-free rotary screw air compressor designed for 90 to 150 psig plant air service that is very inefficient at the reduced pressures needed for pneumatic conveying.

Improved Vacuum Supply Conserves Energy at Meat Processing Operations

The right vacuum solution not only ensures product quality in meat processing operations; it  also helps companies achieve important sustainability goals. Such is the case at two leading meat processing companies in Germany, both of whom added Busch Vacuum Pumps and Systems solutions to their operations and saved energy and more as a result.

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,