With many parts of the UK finally experiencing a warmer summer compared with those of recent years, higher ambient air temperatures and humidity levels mean it's more important than ever that compressed air supplies are adequately treated to remove water. But a solution is available from global pneumatics experts SMC in the form of their series IDFA refrigerated air dryers.
Whilst FRL equipment can remove contaminants such as dust, grease and water from compressed air, the only way of removing water vapour is with an air dryer. A 75kW compressor pressurising air to 0.7 MPa for eight hours could produce enough water to fill 150 wine bottles!1. Compressed air with a high moisture content can cause problems such as corrosion, sticking actuators, valve failures, contaminated air-blow systems and inaccurate instrumentation readings.
Because water vapour may not be an obvious cause of system malfunctions, SMC offers a free dew point test to analyse air supply humidity levels, and can recommend the appropriate dryer to help rectify the situation.
One satisfied SMC customer uses an IDFA dryer to eliminate moist air in a tension control system for fine wire, preventing malfunctions of metal seal cylinders and avoiding the requirement for buying replacement cylinders and lengthy, costly machine downtime. Because the dryer was needed only for the tension control unit, the standalone IDFA was the ideal solution.
Customers using the IDFA dryer series can rest assured they are 'doing their bit' for the environment, as the series uses only ozone-friendly refrigerants2, allowing it to cope with ambient air intake temperatures of up to 40 degrees centigrade.