Save costs with compressed air monitoring
July 2006
Pneumatics & Hydraulics
Compressed air as an energy-transmitting medium is versatile, flexible and safe, making it a popular choice and ensuring its continued use in industry. Too often, however, end-users regard compressed air as a free and convenient resource and overlook the costs of not controlling this medium properly. The costs are often hidden in electricity, maintenance or overheads with no cost allocation to the originator. testo has introduced the testo 6440 compressed air flow counter to help clients reduce compressed air costs.
The compressed air counter testo 6440, provides production managers with a number of valuable benefits, which help control the cost of compressed air, including: allocation of consumption quantities by consumer, leakage detection (which accounts for approximately 35% of the compressed air costs), peak load management and protection of critical consumers from too high or too low supply.
The new built-in totaliser function assists in lowering costs by recording the total consumption value that can be read directly from the instrument or registered in the regulating system via consumption impulses. In this way the compressed air consumption of each system is recorded individually, the person responsible for the system is motivated to reduce leakage and to employ consumption-saving measures. Consumption-dependent switch outputs are also available, which can monitor maximum consumption either time-dependently or time-independently.
Over 96% of leakages occur in DN50 (2") pipes and smaller, normally due to leaky hoses, fittings, connections and maintenance units. An ideal feature of the testo 6440 for leakage monitoring is that with the help of the switch outputs, the user can monitor whether a maximum consumption has been exceeded within a freely programmable time (eg, one week). The measurement transmitter then calls the user to the location suspected of leakage without complicated inspections.
The compressed air counters on the 6440 enable peak load analysis, which helps to avoid investments associated with expansion. Since it is known when which consumption occurs, the existing and planned consumption can be distributed over a daily/weekly profile so that the existing capacity of compressed air production is sufficient. The result is considerable savings in the compressors as well as in the pipe system.
For more information contact Patrick Dolz, UniTemp, 021 762 8995, [email protected]
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