Winners of the 5th annual LEAP Awards (Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program) were announced during a virtual celebration to recognize innovation and engineering achievements. This year, our top-notch independent judging panel selected 44 gold, silver, and bronze winners and honorable mentions across 14 categories. The 2022 ΊΪΑΟ³ΤΉΟs category winners are: Gold Norgren Excelon Plus Integrated […]
Components
Compressed air fail: A forgotten step
A large industrial company was having problems with its air quality.Β Water was appearing as if at random at one of its most critical processes, causing instrumentation failures and contamination of the product.Β This issue was difficult to understand because it looked like the refrigerated air dryer was working fine β and dewpoint looked good […]
Coval announces enhanced multi-stage vacuum pumps for heavy duty suction
Coval’s new CMS HD series of modular multi-stage vacuum pumps offers a solution for high suction flow rate vacuum handling of a wide variety of objects. The pumps are ideally suited for pick-up and transfer operations in applications such as handling of porous parts or emptying large-volume tanks. Jointly developed with system integrators and industrial […]
How do you flow test an air compressor?
As compressors age, there can be internal wear or control problems that affect the flow output capacity. Often times, observing the amps of the compressor β and comparing that to the motor nameplate β can show if a compressor has problems. If the amps are low, that usually means the compressor flow capacity is lower […]
Compressed air fail: Two flow meters
There is an old saying about a man with two watches who never knows what time it is. One wonders if this applies to having two flow meters? Fig. 1 shows the comparison of two thermal mass flow meters measuring the same compressed air stream. We can see there is a disparity between the readings, […]
How do air motors work?
By Josh Cosford, Contributing Editor A motor is any device designed to convert one form of energy into rotational mechanical force. For example, an electric motor converts electrical potential into mechanical torque, and a hydraulic motor converts hydraulic energy from pressure and flow into mechanical torque. And an air motor converts compressed air into that […]
Compressed air fail: Air water cooling
Desperate times call for desperate measures β or at least that is what the maintenance personnel at a chemical plant thought when they had production outages caused by overheating of their water-cooled, lubricant free compressor. So, they rigged up some cooling using a compressed air powered ring jet nozzle (Fig. 1) and directed a flow […]
Emerson to showcase powerful automation solutions at Pack Expo 2022
Emerson will present new solutions that drive operational excellence in packaging and food and beverage processing applications at Pack Expo International 2022 on October 23-26 in Chicago. Todayβs packaging lines must accommodate an unprecedented level of product variety and packaging complexities, but there are powerful automation capabilities that can significantly improve productivity, efficiency, and sustainability […]
What are pneumatic actuators?
By Josh Cosford, Contributing Editor ΊΪΑΟ³ΤΉΟ actuators take advantage of compressed air to provide your machine with quick and powerful actuation of nearly infinite possible functions. ΊΪΑΟ³ΤΉΟ actuators may take the form of cylinders, motors, slides, grippers and rotary actuators, each of which receives pressurized and compressed air to create linear or rotational force. The […]
Atlas Copco acquires compressor distributor in New Mexico
Atlas Copco has acquired the operating assets of the compressor business of Mesa Equipment & Supply Company (Mesa) located inΒ Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 19 employees will join Atlas Copco. The company sells oil-free and oil-injected compressors and offers parts and services across a broad range of customer segments. βMesa has built a strong sales and […]
