All atmospheric air contains at least some portion of water vapor, and that water vapor is ready to cause rust and other types of corrosion to your system. It’s unavoidable that at least a percentage of the material that’s going into your system is going to have water. What’s not unavoidable, however, is the damage itself. That is how compressed air dryers are used in pneumatic systems.
Naturally, you’ll want to look into stainless steel fittings and other technologies that can help stave off this corrosion. Since stainless steel is a high-grade alloy that has a sufficient amount of chromium and other substances in it that can help prevent rust, it’s a great way to increase the longevity of the pneumatic system that you’re working with.
That being said, you can’t simply prepare for the wet vapor to start damaging your equipment. Rather, what you’re going to want to do is invest in a high-quality air dryer system that will help eliminate some of this water from your circuit so that you can be sure that everything stays nice and dry inside.
How To Deploy An Air Dryer In Pneumatic Systems
Your technicians will want to consider the specific use of the compressed air when selecting a dryer. This choice is best done by a professional who knows the particular different end-users. Of course, we’d always be willing to help if you needed it.
Give some thought to how much moisture would need to be removed to ascertain the level of moisture that the system can tolerate. Some pneumatic systems are far more tolerant of water vapor being stuck inside of them than others. A few pieces of equipment are so touchy that they’d best not be ever exposed to even the slightest amount of water vapor for fear that they’d start to develop some sort of oxidization.
Once you’ve decided on your maximum level of risk tolerance, you’ll be in a better position to select a new air dryer to use with your current equipment configuration. You want to remove moisture precisely, depending on the system.
Many dryers have a standard rating of around 100° saturated inlet air temperature and something like 100 PSIG operating pressure. It’s vital that you check the actual performance of units that are going to be used in actual plant operations.
Keep in mind that there are many other uses that require moisture removal to a very low dew point. Make a list of what sort of systems you’re using in your own place of business so you can be sure that you don’t overload any of them with unnecessarily high levels of moisture. Always remember that not all systems are anywhere near as fault-tolerant as they might seem to be.
Pneumatic Systems That May Need Stronger Dryers
Railroad tank cars that carry liquid chlorine are sometimes charged up with extra compressed air. This padding process allows people at the other end of the supply chain to unload the cars pneumatically. Chlorine will combine with water at times to form hydrochloric acid, which isn’t at all fun to work with so you’ll want to make sure that you use the right kind of equipment for the job.
At the same time, wind tunnels and a number of other types of pieces of test equipment used in the aviation industry have some extremely specific requirements regarding their use. If this sounds at all familiar, then you’ll want to protect them. It might not be a safety problem in this case, but it can be really costly to have to run an entire simulation all over again because some water got into the air circuitry and started to mess things up.
Once you have this worked out, you’ll be able to select the kind of gear that you need to keep your own equipment working smoothly. Chances are that you’re not working with anything nearly this esoteric, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to at least give some thought to how much protection would be a good level to keep your investment in high-grade material running longer.
Picking The Right Air Dryer For Your Specific Use Case
Consider a membrane air dryer, which is available as both a single unit that stands alone or perhaps in a combination style. These combine a mist separator with a micro-mist separator that helps to get all of the little bits of particulate matter out of an air stream. Optional extras include things like a single one-touch fitting purge air exhaust. If you don’t exhaust purged air around the membrane air dryer, then the air will still get exhausted with tubing away from its housing.
Any tubing that you use here is simply standard SMC material, which makes it easy to create a system that will always ensure dry air without the need for investing in a huge collection of very specific parts that might not always perform exactly as expected.
Technicians that work with this kind of material won’t have to be retrained, either. The same standard parts that they’ve always worked with are good enough to use here, so they can apply the same techniques they’ve always used to get them going.
As air passes through the frame, a catch mesh will capture particles of water since these are physically larger in terms of geometry than anything else in the substrate. The molecules of air, therefore, are able to simply pass through like normal. This allows for an uninhibited flow of compressed air that still retains nearly its full strength without any of the moisture that could theoretically damage your equipment.
Some people have elected to use equipment that’s similar to these to prevent the flow of other particles, like those that result from the use of compressed air-driven equipment to spray paint. There are also a number of filtration options for those who are deeply concerned about little bits of oil or other material that could theoretically make it through your installation’s fittings.
Improve Your Compressed Air System With Moving Parts From SMC Pneumatics
SMC Pneumatics has a complete set of compressed air dryers that are designed to take care of the problem. They will alleviate any issues that you might have been experiencing in the process. Our specialists will also answer all of our questions.
No matter what kind of gear you need or how esoteric it might be, however, you’re going to find it from SMC Pneumatics. Make sure to use the online contact form on our site to get in touch with a helpful representative of our organization. They’ll be sure to go over your requirements with you so that you can get the absolute best equipment for the job and get back to work faster than ever with dryer air than you had before.