Industrial Energy Savings    

Pneumatics

Festo Optimizes Compressed Air Consumption at Volkswagen
By Sachin Kambli, Product Manager, Festo Corporation
Many passenger cars on roads in Germany contain efficiency concepts that make a considerable contribution to lowering emissions. Automotive manufacturers such as VW have gone even further than this, by applying efficiency strategies in their own value added chain. Because the benefits of pneumatics in automotive industry production processes have seen pneumatic actuation win over other drive technologies, efficient use of compressed air plays a key role in increasing energy efficiency.
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PET Bottle Blowing Efficiency
Compressed Air Best Practices® Interviewed Dean Smith, iZ Systems.
The PET industry is in a state of flux right now. A number of new bottle blowing facilities are being brought on-line. They are in the “discovery” phase right now as they realize how challenging the required compressed air systems are to manage – from an energy efficiency standpoint. The average high-volume stretch blow molder (SBM) working with PET usually has 2,000 to 4,000 horsepower of installed air compressors with the related energy costs running between $1 to $4 million per year. This typically represents 35-40% of the facilities’ total energy bill.
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A View From Canada. Tembec Sawmill and Pneu-Logic Stabilize Pressure
By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices®
Pneumatic air cylinders play a major role in allowing a modern sawmill to produce at the high-speed production rates required. Stable air pressure is critical to allow the air cylinders to respond in a timely manner and avoid any production delays.
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How to Avoid the Most Common Bus/Coach Kneeling Failures
By Paxton Augustine, Product Marketing Manager, Parker Hannifin Corporation
Kneeling modules are quickly becoming the centerpiece of accessible vehicle equipment. This trend began with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1991. Prior to the ADA, about 40% of all transportation vehicles were accessible to persons with disabilities.
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The “Dirty Thirty” – Discovering Pressure Differential at the Far End
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®
Much attention and expense is often directed towards optimizing compressor control, clean-up equipment, system pressure / flow control and main system piping in an attempt to maintain adequate and stable pressure at the end use. Often forgotten are the components of the distribution system between the main system header and the end use.
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A Pharmaceutical Compressed Air System Audit
By Mike Nagy
This West Coast pharmaceutical facility has a very clean and organized compressed air system. All equipments is in good working order in the compressor room. The compressor room itself is very clean and well ventilated. The management requested a compressed air system audit for two reasons:
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Optimizing Pneumatic Systems for Extra Savings
Edits by David Booth, Jan Zuercher, Bill Scales
Compressed air users looking for energy reduction often identify their air compressors as a prime area for savings potential. But …what about end uses? There are a large number of obvious measures that can be implemented, such as leakage reduction, reducing open blowing and eliminating inappropriate uses..however, there are other more technical opportunities available that involve properly specifying or redesigning existing pneumatic circuitry in compressed air operated machines and processes.
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OEM MACHINE DESIGN. Pneumatics: Sizing Demand Users
By Scot Foss, Air’s a Gas Inc.
Most systems are sized on the supply side at many times more volume and significantly higher pressure than is actually necessary to support the real demand plus a fudge factor generally created out of fear. I am sure that had the OEM defined what is not only minimally necessary in terms of mass flow at density (pressure and temperature), but also with the intent of the highest possible efficiency, we would approach things very differently.
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Pneumatic System Assessments Save Energy
By Jon Jensen, Energy Conservation Manager, SMC Corporation of America
When it comes to conserving energy in compressed air nothing is sexier than a big, old, oil-free 300 horsepower variable speed drive air compressor coupled with a heat of compression dryer tied to an energy management system with all the trimmings. If you’re like me, it’s hard not to let out a manly grunt after reading that sentence.
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Reducing Packaging Cycle Times
By Phil O’Neill, Standard Products Manager, Bosch Rexroth Pneumatics
Swiss brush company Ebnat-Kappel uses non contact transfer technology from Bosch Rexroth to automate a problematic section of its packaging production process.
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Washdown Pneumatics Reduce Downtime
by: KJell Lyngstad, Bosch Rexroth Pneumatics
Cleanliness is often considered to be a virtue. In the beverage packaging industry, however, cleanliness is an absolute necessity.
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