Point Of Use: Air Receiver Sizing and Placement

Greetings once again everyone!

The last two installments have been about air receiver sizing within the compressor room.

Compressor Room Layout: Air Receiver Sizing and Placement
Compressor Room Layout: Air Receiver Sizing and Placement, Continued

Today we will address point of use receivers.

Point of Use Receivers

Again, the opinions are many. As always the best advice I can offer is to find a well-educated, consultative professional. Do away with the “salesman” that always has the best price.

In this profession (probably in most) we tend to hear the same concerns and potential solutions over and over. One of those repetitive concerns is: “Occasionally my pressure drops in the main header – so I want to install an air receiver at the far end to combat this issue.”

Although this solution very may well remedy the problem – most often it does not. The solution fails because people don’t take the time to identify the root cause of the problem. This takes time, effort and knowledge of both the system and the physics of compressed air.

Areas to Investigate

• Design of the header (loop or branch)
• Pressure drop and velocity in the header system
• Proper supply volume
• Point of use applications

For this discussion we will zero in on point of use applications that cause the header pressure to be insufficient. These are almost always rather large, intermittent demands. One such application is plasma cutting with a water table. In this application compressed air is used to raise and lower the water level though basically a bladder. Preparing for a cut the water level is raised by filling the bladder with compressed air. Upon completion of the cut, the compressed air is released thus lowering the water level.

2016-05-25-air-release-valve-open.01

Air Release Valve Closed

The filling of the bladder constitutes a large intermittent demand for compressed air. The proper solution comes in two parts. The first is to size a point-of-use receiver to handle 100% of the required volume. The second part is to prolong the re-pressurizing of the receiver as long as possible. Prolonging the re-pressurization results in an overall reduced demand on the compressor system allowing header pressure to remain stable.

I have purposely left out all of the research and formulas to properly size this receiver solution. Not for selfish reasons – just thought a brief blog was not the place to delve into the algebraic equations required.

Other Applications That May Benefit from a Point-of-Use Receiver

• sand blasting,
• pneumatic product transfer,
• sparging,
• packaging,
• and many more.

Atlantic Compressors is a full-service distributor, offering engineering services, and equipment sales and rentals. Our service department is fully staffed and trained to provide routine and emergency service on most makes and models of air compressor equipment.

Please contact us for a no obligation walk-through of your compressed air system by phone at (540) 728-1147 or by email at bill@atlanticcompressors.com.