Technology

Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Dr. Jay Varadaraj, (Managing Director) of ELGi Equipments Ltd.

ELGi today is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of air compressors. Like most companies, however, it started with one ambitious person. My grandfather, Lakshminaickenpalayam Govindaswamy (this where the “L” and “G” in ELGi come from) was a bus driver for the British in 1918. He purchased one bus and proceeded to build a fleet peaking at 300 buses. He believed he was in the transportation business so he entered the airline business ultimately withdrawing however when this industry was nationalized.

The compressed air system in most industrial and commercial facilities is vital to production machinery and processes. When it goes down so does the plant output. This important utility is often one of the most costly energy consumers in a facility. Yet most compressed air system operators have little knowledge of how their compressed air system is performing and, if problems have happened, do not have an accurate record of what went wrong.

Boeing Canada Winnipeg (BCW) has been recognized with the best improvement project of 2013 within the Boeing enterprise worldwide. A cross-functional project team including BCW staff, Manitoba Hydro technical support, and design engineers from Alliance Engineering Services, Inc. used innovative high-pressure storage to reduce the required size of their air compressors and save substantial utility energy and demand charges.

This is a food processing plant where processes and standards are controlled by FDA to AIB standards. Annual plant electric costs for compressed air production, as operating today, are \$116,765 per year. If the electric costs of \$3,323 associated with operating ancillary equipment such as dryers are included, the total electric costs for operating the air system are \$120,088 per year. These estimates are based upon a blended electric rate of \$0.085/kWh.

Most of us understand each individual has a unique DNA combination. Compressed air is very similar, each compressed air system should be uniquely designed so the system performs in harmony. Properly managing the compressed air system requires an investigative audit to understand the nuances of the system and identify the most effective solution(s) for efficiency. Not investigating the system, before selecting improvements, would be like consenting to surgery without having an exam. Yet, this frequently occurs in businesses operating compressed air systems.

Northwest Pump & Equipment was founded in 1959 - opening three branches on the same day in Portland, Seattle and Spokane. The business focus was to distribute petroleum equipment for the oil and gas market – primarily to service stations and oil jobbers. In-ground fuel tanks, hoists, lubrication equipment, lighting, farm pumps, air compressors and other gas pumping equipment were our primary product lines back when there were “Full-Service Gas Stations”. Over the years, this successful business model was expanded so the Company did business in California, Hawaii, Washington, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana.

Over many years of reviewing industrial compressed air production machinery, of many types and styles, there is one common thread or complaint; “push-to-connect pneumatic tubing connections/fittings are a continual source of compressed air leaks and production interruptions.”  Probably seventy-five to eighty percent of push-to-connect type tubing fittings use flexible tubing selected for lower material cost and assembly rather than an alternate appropriate hard metallic tubing.

Compressed air is used in a number of processes in the food industry. It is used as an ingredient in whipped products such as ice cream, to slice or cut soft products and to open packages
before filling of product. Currently, food manufacturers are under pressure to validate the safety of all ingredients or processes for regulatory compliance, but unfortunately, there is currently no standard method to evaluate the microbial content of compressed air.

It’s one thing to move materials during the production process, but when it’s a finished product on the packaging line, choosing the right material handling system is essential. Getting it wrong results in squandered production time when product loss occurs, and wasted raw materials.

One type of dryer seen frequently across the world is the regenerative desiccant dryer. These dryers have a number of characteristics that can affect their cost of operation and the operating of the associated compressors and can therefore affect the efficiency of the complete compressed air system.