Their system was designed and built to achieve premium performance, yet in a recent compressed air assessment the numbers showed their system had surprisingly poor performance, and worse, their staff was unaware of the problems. This article discusses some of the challenges faced and some future solutions that could get their system back to higher performance levels.

Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Mr. Bill Kennedy, Global Marketing Manager, Mattei Compressors.

If the electricity costs 8x what you paid to purchase the compressor, and you can reduce that value by 20% or more, the compressor is virtually free as the energy savings provide a return-on-investment that exceeds the purchase price. Now, if you eliminate the need to ever have to overhaul the airend you gain a massive financial and long-term reliability advantage.

Vane motors can run at much higher speeds (2000 rpm and up), but piston motors tend to turn much slower – less than 1000 rpm. For slower speed applications, vane motors are mated with a gear reducer and called a gearmotor. The gearmotor can produce the higher torque and slower speed needed for some applications, but the gear reducer can add some drivetrain loss. While a piston air motor may not be able to replace a vane motor where high speed is needed, it can be a good choice for high torque/low speed applications.  

Utilities monitoring paired with machine learning models can reliably predict anomalies, prompting action that can prevent waste and optimize resource use.