Essential Elements For Eliminating Build Up

It is time that technology caught up to the air cannon. The market has accepted underperformance and a lack of innovation for many years. Dracyon’s goal is to challenge various long-held assumptions regarding air cannon performance.

Specifically, Dracyon challenges the belief that the most important factor in cleaning is peak force (Peak force is expressed by the following formula: area x pressure. It refers to the highest force an air cannon will generate throughout the duration of the firing and lasts for a brief period of time). Rather, it is Dracyon’s belief that the most important factors in air cannon performance are 1) the nozzle used and 2) the volume of the air tank.

For optimal performance, an air cannon needs to have enough power to break the bond of cohesion of the buildup and also have enough volume to then push the material out of the way. This means the keys to performance are the nozzle and the volume of the air tank. The nozzle is key because, regardless of the peak force of the air cannon, the power of the blast coming out of the nozzle is what matters. Once that bond is broken, then the remainder of the air is what actually moves the material, which is why volume is important.

In order to prove those statements, Dracyon performed a series of tests using an IGS 150 l air cannon, an IGS 300 l Big Blue air cannon, and a competitor’s 70 l air cannon. Each air cannon was fired against a 230 lb (104.33 kg) sled that was allowed to move across a metal table. The sled was placed at various distances from the air cannon nozzles, ranging from 0.5 in. (1.27 cm) to 9 ft (2.74 m).

The first objective was to show the differences between the IGS High Velocity nozzle, the IGS 6 in. Monster nozzle, and a competitor’s 4 in. pipe fan jet nozzle. The second objective was to evaluate the air cannon performance based on the volume of the air tank. The third objective was to see the difference in performance made by air pressure, which is related to peak force.

In these tests, the air cannons were tested with different nozzles, with varying air pressures ranging from 60, 80, and to 100 psi. After each blast, the distance from the nozzle to the sled was measured.

Dracyon understands that many different factors impact cleaning and that these tests cannot account for all of them. These tests were specifically carried out to show the difference in cleaning performance produced by air cannons with different volumes as well as the various nozzles. In addition, this allowed the impact of air pressure and volume in cleaning applications to be measured.

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