Richard H Henley

Free As Air



Posted: Tuesday, January 31, 2006

by
Aimarket, A.I.M. Associates

How often have you heard the expression “free as the air we breathe"?

We do not see the air we breathe or the air we use. The latter is most frequently “compressed air" and it is certainly not free. Actually, compressed air is a costly, but very valuable, servant of mankind, typically produced by the expenditure of electrical energy in mechanical compressors, then distributed and regulated for use through expensive piping networks, regulators, valves and filters. [according to the Department of Energy (DOE) one of the MOST costly energy utilities in industry]

TECO (Thompson Equipment Company) is a New Orleans, Louisiana based manufacturer of industrial instrumentation - much of which uses compressed air in its operation. They have maintained nearly 60 years of customer loyalty by being concerned that their products perform better in a customer’s facility than expected. So when customers complain about equipment they investigate thoroughly each time. Objective analysis often revealed the cause has nothing to do with the equipment furnished but rather the quality of the air being used. Many of their customers had invested huge amounts of money (oftentimes10's or 100's of thousands of dollars) in compressed air clean-up equipment and systems, so they always advised TECO that they had "good" air. It was not an acceptable solution for TECO (nor did they think the customer would have liked it much either) to have simply pointed the finger at the “bad" air and say "it’s not our problem".

GOOD AIR VERSUS BAD

The words good and bad may not really be appropriate in describing air. In the atmosphere air always contains some water in vaporous form. The warmer the air, the greater potential for holding a greater amount of water. When we mechanically compress the air to perform work for us, we often add some oil from the compressor’s lubrication system (crankcase, etc.). When released the compressed air, expands, cools and condenses the water vapor into water, often oily water and also often containing small particles of foreign matter picked up from the piping system it travels through. The combination of air and contaminants is not good for many uses perhaps other than air blasting of a barn floor, cleaning pigeon residues or foundry molds. It causes the system to lose efficiency, destroys the very pipes that deliver it and is certainly not good for most pneumatic machines and processes (air tools, paint spraying, food processing, printing, modern uses “ad infinitum"). What we just described is so called “bad air." Logically it follows that “good air" must be dry and clean.

A SOLUTION

Bruce H. Thompson, TECO President, sought a solution to this historic problem. There had been many and varied attempts at solutions. The state of the art in compressed air drying and cleaning included refrigerated cooler types, desiccant types (heated and heatless), deliquescent types, membrane and filter types. Nothing presently available seemed to totally fill the need. A proprietary “molecular sieve" type desiccant bed was found. It provided very-low pressure dew points compared to other type desiccants. TECO found that this unique desiccant bed along with a patent pending pre-filter separator provided the basis for their HD and QD Air Dryer Systems.

Theory of Desiccant Operation

Charge Cycle

Compressed air enters the air dryer through the inlet port. As the warm air enters the dryer system the air expands oil and water vapor condense, and accumulate in the sump. The air is directed into a desiccant cartridge passing through a series of internal filters and a cloth bag removing contaminates.



Air vapor continues to condense as air travels to the desiccant bed that holds water under pressure. The clean dry air is then directed to the air system through the outlet port.

Regeneration Cycle

Dryers systematically regenerate when control signals are received from the micro logic controller by temporarily removing a single dryer off line to begin the regeneration process. An air pressure signal received from this controller



opens the purge valve and closes the air dryer’s inlet and regeneration valves. This action causes a sudden discharge of air through the exhaust port of the dryer. These valves react to air pressure when an air dryer purge port opens. With the inlet valve closed, the regeneration valve is in position to control a timed pressurized back flow of filtered dried air that reenters the desiccant cartridge. During the regeneration cycle, the desiccant bed is depressurized allowing the removal of accumulated moisture from desiccant bed, back flushing and cleaning filters expelling contaminants out the dryers purge port. This completes the regeneration cycle.

The resulting scalable systems are rapidly being accepted as a reliable cost effective solution to an inescapable problem whenever air is compressed for a multitude of commercial/industrial tasks in diverse industries..

Following are the comments of some TECO MVP- HD Series Air Dryer users during recent interviews:

Aviation

Chris Wilkins, Director Prop Aircraft, Central Flying Service, Little Rock, Arkansas “Before installing the HD2 MVP Air Dryer we actually had oily water dripping from our mechanic’s air tools! Moisture in the compressed air rusts the tools bearings and ultimately destroys the drives. Not to mention it ultimately was rusting out the approximately 600 feet of air piping between hangers. Now in our fourth year of use, we have had no further trouble."

Automotive Ronnie de St. Germain, Body Shop Manager, Banner Chevrolet, New Orleans, Louisiana “We operate two large compressors and paint six to twelve cars a day. Prior to learning about and installing the HD6 Air Dryer system we were getting “fisheyes" in paint jobs (drips due to water getting into the air lines of pneumatic spray guns)(sic). This was causing delays in getting our customer jobs out on a timely basis plus increased costs due to having to sand out the fisheye and then repaint the job. With the New Orleans humidity, and our outdoor tank location, we were forced to drain the tank twice a day. That is how much moisture we were fighting before the TECO Engineers solved our problem. We have had no more problems since we made the installation four years ago. I would say the system paid for itself the first month of operation."

Commercial Truck Diesel Engine Mechanics Jason Phillips, Manager, Penske Truck Leasing, Harahan, Louisiana “Our mechanics use very expensive air tools and heavy duty air jacks to service the big diesel engines that power our 18-wheeler tractors. A ¼" drive air ratchet can cost up to $200.00 and a ¾" tool costs four to five hundred dollars. Water in the compressed air would quickly destroy seals and seize-up tools, jacks or other pneumatic devices. We have had no such trouble since installing TECO HD2 MVP Air Dryers in our 10 HP piston type compressed air system."

All of the MVP Air Dryer end users have proclaimed their installations a success with rapid payback and surprising low operating costs. TECO claims a typical system operates at a fraction of the electrical cost of a light bulb.

http://aimarket.com/casehistory.htm

The End

Copyright © 2004 aimarket (american industrial marketing associates)
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