Air Compressor Evaluation

Try this web site:

http://www.compressedairchallenge.org/

I could not understand the meaning - "I am a chemical engineer & it's hard for me to understand as well as to develop a testing scheme on how to test the company's air compressor.

This is a job of process engineer to do the energy audit of these systems.

You need to do following things.

1. Do the compressor FAD test for volumetric efficiency.

2. Performance test for isentropic efficiency.

3. Identify problems in the compressors if any.

4. Identify need of actual compressed air & pressure level.

5. Plan operating scheme based on need.

You can go thru my blog & download a compressed air sourcebook from Download section which is open only thru invitation. So send me ur mail ID for invitation if interested. My blog is at http://profmaster.blogspot.com

There are some daily data such as: pressure of compressed air, temperature of compressor, current of compressor motor that can be used to evaluate air compressor system.

You can refer to compressor user manual.

When adding up needs, remember that, for most plants, not all systems will be running at once. For example, cylinders often use a lot of air when the extend or retract, but will spend a lot more time remaining in one position than they do moving. You may have 20-30 had tools, but only 4-5 people using them.

The previous suggestion to close the charging valves on the receiver and see how long it takes to drop below the minimum required pressure is an excellent one since you are evaluating a system in place. No estimates will be needed.

The evaluation of compressed air system is what I understand is needed. This would require evaluation of following things-

1 - Is the compressed air system designed for the pressure required by the process? The system may generates more pressure than required to be reduced by a pressure reducing valve in the system. This means you are wasting lot of energy.

The system may need air at different pressures in the process. You need to find out if generating compressed air at different pressures is feasible, resulting in energy saving.

2 - There are normally lot of air leakages in any system. By running compressor on a holiday, you will know how much energy is wasted due to leakages.

3 - The distriution system might be inadequate. The pressure loss in the system might be adding to the higher pressure generation at compressor end.

4 - Instead of cycling the compressor, you can use the "variable speed drive" for the compressor that takes care of "load variation" while the base load is taken care of by another compressor. This would eliminate the energy required to run the compressor on "no load". This can be very significant fraction of total energy consumed by the system.

5 - Compressed air generation itself can be inefficient. This would mean less compressed air generation per unit of energy. This would be little difficult to test, but professional help would definitely help to know this.

Compressed air is the most expensive form of energy and often neglected. There should be effort to eliminate compressed air usage in a process if posible.

hi.1st of all,i would like to thank all personnel who posted their opinion here..since i'm a newbie (really really newbie T_T),there are many things that i still need to work on my understanding.currently,i'm using the Air Compressor Sourcebook (downloaded from intrnet surely -_-).here,i'm using comment posted by rsalaskar as a guide to evaluate my progress..

1>>honestly,i didnt quite understand what you are trying to say in the sentence.the plant i'm currently attached to is using compressed air extensively for lense cleaning as well as lense picking.since the main product produce by this company is spectacle lenses,the compressed air is connected to the above section and then divided to all the small work station there.since there are many small work station,the air is blown at fluctuate time interval by each workers.my question is,HOW to know or measure how much the compressed air is needed by the process?

2>>from the compressor sourcebook,it is stated that air leak is a common problem.i also think there will surely be air leak since the plant has been running since 1986 and many equipments in the plant is also from that time (LOL!)

3>>pressure loss also come from bending and corrossion inside the duct right?is there any way to prevent this?it also occur when the supply system is too far from the demanding site

4>>i think the company already using a VSD compressor.but,WHAT is actually compressor load?is there any connectivity between load and the compressor work cycle?

review the compressor's manual, check it folows data:

manufacture compressor

type compressor

flow

operation conditions ( presure inlet, presure outlet, presure interstage )

and compare your real data with design data.

check the flow you nead vs flow real of the two compressors

atte

ejruiza

You can evaluate capacity(free air delivery) of the comressor using evaluation of fillup time required by the copressor to a tank of known capacity.

This FAD will be calculated as given below,

Find factor A = pressure rise (in Kg/cm2) x Volume of the tank ( in m3)

Now find factor B = A / Atmospheric pressure (in kg/cm2).

Now find FAD = B/time taken in minutes

To evaluate sound level measure sound at 1 meter from the compressor.

To evaluate maintainability see ease during approach to various components during maintenence.

Man Mohan Pandey

Include in your preventive maintenance inspection the use of a stop watch to measure the amount of time the compressor is running and the amount of time the compressor is off...this test, repeated with each pm cycle and compared to previous cycles, is the easiest way to identify the need for a more time consuming inspection of the compressors performance and the air delivery equipment. Leaks and poor performance will show up here first.