Erdem Enç
Products and Marketing Specialist at Atlas Copco Compressor Technique
Having elaborated on what the facilities should pay attention to when choosing the most suitable compressor for their need, Erdem Enç, Products and Marketing Specialist at Atlas Copco Compressor Technique, said “Facilities will have much productive operational results with the most suitable compressors and equipments to be chosen for their needs after determining air quality, flow requirement, and pressure, as well as finding respective daily distribution of flow consumption. Organizations may benefit from our engineering services provided free of charge as Atlas Copco Compressor Technique, a leading technology in its field, in order for determine proper compressors and equipments they need .”
What should be paid attention in choosing a proper compressor?
Determination of air quality
Having indicated that pressured air quality varies depending on the industry it is used, Mr. Enç says “Such quality for compressors is classified as lubricated or unlubricated technology. In the facilities such as pharmaceutics, food, electronics where the final product quality is vitally important, it would be better to utilize unlubricated compressor systems. Using a lubricated compressor instead of an unlubricated system and trying to make air un-lubricated by means of filters do not make the air un-lubricated. Preferring an un-lubricated compressor means taking zero risk. Atlas Copco Compressor Technique’s un-lubricated air compressors provide 100 percent pure and clean air in compliance with ISO 8573-1 CLASS 0 (2010) and ISO 22000 certificate. This means zero contamination risk, zero risk of defected product, zero down-time risk, and zero risk of damage on your company’s reputation earned by exerting great efforts.”
Determination of flow requirement and pressure
Saying that the second factor in determination of compressor dimension is flow and pressure, Mr. Enç continued, “It is necessary to determine the pressure of compressor in consideration of operational pressure of all equipments utilizing air and any loss from the pipe line. By determining flow requirement after deciding on the pressure, one gets one-step closer to deciding on a suitable compressor. For any existing facility, such value may be calculated approximately from any compressor in operation. For new facilities, comparison with a facility doing the same work will be greatly indicative in determination of consumption and loads of any equipment utilizing air. Furthermore, clarification of which combinations thereof will be run is important in order to avoid regulation gaps and prevent running of high kW compressors for lower flow requirements.”
Determining daily distribution of flow consumption
Emphasizing the necessity of profiling the flow consumption of given facility after determining maximum instantaneous flow requirement, Mr. Enç said “Such profile would contain daily work hours and variations in flow consumption. Such information is needed for choosing compressors for consuming lesser energy and being long lasting. It ensures deciding on the choices of whether compressors to be with inverter or dead load, one or two, or in combination thereof. Determination of correct flow consumption and pressure ensures smooth running of a compressor, and energy consumption is lesser for any compressor chosen correctly. When calculating flow capacity it is highly important to consider levels of utilization and load factors of equipments in a facility requiring pressured air.”
“Do not waste either your energy or thousands of Euros”
Expressing that any preference to be decided on without considering such factors would incur substantial material losses on facilities, Mr. Enç drew attention to such losses with a sample scenario: “Let’s assume that the flow requirement calculated without considering load factors and utilization levels of the equipments in any facility used in grinding, drilling, and screwing processes is 400 l/s. This would indicate the requirement of a compressor of approximately 132kW. On the other hand, let us think that a calculation made in consideration of load factors and utilization levels gives the result of 85 l/s. This requires a compressor of 30kW. Assuming that compressors in both scenarios are run for one year, and are decided on as dead-load compressors; in case of any faulty decision in calculations made, the loss is 200,000 kW/h; in other words, amounting to 14,000 Euro.”
