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On site Performance test - Air compressors

Technical Report January 2011

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4791.4002

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Kalasalingam University
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 Comp r essor Capacity

Air compressors are one of the fourth

On site air utilities installed in almost all types

of industries. It is one of the energy
intensive electro mechanical equipment.
Depending on the nature of industry,
compressor the energy consumption by air
compressors ranges from 15-40% of the
total energy consumed in the industry.
capacity test The compressors are initially procured
with an estimated air requirement &
with specified air pressure needed for

saves energy the process equipment or end users.

These compressors are factory tested
and seldom tested in the field after

and money installation. The things become worst if

more compressors are connected in
series or decentralized.

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 T
he actual energy utilization specified by its FAD and Pressure. A carried out in field and therefore a

Comp r essor Capacity

of an air compressor is only typical technical specification for a more simple method adopted for the
10-20% and the remaining screw compressor is listed below: test.
energy input is converted as Air delivery
heat of compression. To ensure Working pressure Methodology of Capacity Test
efficient generation of compressors Receiver air tank capacity This test needs less skill and
are to be tested in the field at Automatic pressure switch simple arithmetic calculation and
frequent interval. The test is named Pressure relief valve any skilled person can conduct the
Capacity Test or Pump Up Test. Drain valve test under the supervision of a
This test is very simple, needs short Suction filter qualified engineer. Instruments
time and can be conducted during Non return valve needed for the test are: (1)
lunch time or week end holidays. Maximum noise level (70 dB at stopwatch (2) Clip on power meter
This can be a part of routine normal load condition). which measures KW. Use of
maintenance work. This article Why onsite capacity assessment? conventional multi-meter to measure
discusses methodology of conducting The onsite capacity assessment line current to calculate the power
this test with a case study. test helps save energy and also should be avoided because the value
knows the actual health of an old of power factor cannot be assumed
Air Compressor Specification compressor. A fairly new installations and this may lead to wrong
The industrial air compressors may not yield any appreciable result conclusion. Therefore, only clip on
are classified into two major in energy saving but an old power meter should be used to
categories namely (1) Positive compressors can certainly a sources measure the actual power drawn by
Displacement and (2) Dynamic of energy waste. Due to ageing of the air compressor panel meter
compressors. The types of air the compressors and inherent installed can be used. The steps
compressor used under these inefficiencies in internal components, involved in conducting the test are-
categories are Reciprocating, screw the free air delivered may be less Isolate the air receiver from the
and centrifugal air compressors. The than the design value, despite good air network by closing the
positive displacement compressors maintenance practices. Sometimes, delivery valve after the receiver
are further classified as oil injected other factors such as poor Measure the approximate volume
and oil less and the highest quality maintenance, fouled heat exchanger of piping network and filters like
of air is delivered by oil less air and effects of altitude also tend to oil filter, intercooler and after
compressors. Irrespective of the reduce free air delivery. In order to cooler etc, between compressor
type of air compressors, the meet the air demand, the inefficient and receiver in m3
specification is based on its FAD compressor may have to run for Hold the clip on power meter in
(Free Air Delivery) and pressure more time, thus consuming more any one of the phase in the
measured in cfm (Cubic feet per power than actually required. The switch panel
minute) and bar or Kg/cm2 power wastage depends on the Empty the air receiver and set
respectively. For the convenient of percentage deviation of FAD the pressure gauge at 0 bar
measurement, the cfm can be capacity. For example, a worn out (gauge)
converted into required units as compressor valve can reduce the Drain water from the receiver
shown in Table 1. compressor capacity by as much as and do not forget to close the
The rating of air compressor is 20%. A periodic assessment of the drain valve
FAD capacity of each compressor Start the compressor and start
From To Multiply by Example
particularly old ones has to be the stop watch once the
cfm m3/mt 0.0283 100cfm
3 carried out to check its actual compressor comes to loading
= 2.83 m /mt
3 capacity. If the deviations are mode
cfm m /hr 0.5889 100cfm
3 more than 10%, corrective Simultaneously measure the KW
= 58.8 m /hr
3 3 measures should be taken to in the clip on power meter for
m /mt cfm 35.3356 100 m /mt
= 3533.56 cfm rectify the same. The ideal each pressure till the compressor
3
m /hr cfm 1.6980 100 m3 hr method of compressor capacity reaches the normal working
= 169.80 cfm assessment is through a nozzle pressure
bar Kg/cm 2
1.02 5 bar test wherein a calibrated nozzle Note down the time in seconds
= 5.1 Kg/cm2 is used as a load, to vent out the taken to fill the receiver to the
bar PSI (Pounds/ 14.50 5 bar generated compressed air. Flow normal operating pressure, i.e.
square inch = 72.5 PSI is assessed, based on the air compressor reaches unloading
or lbs) temperature, stabilization mode
Table 1: Unit conversion for Compressed pressure, and orifice constant Tabulate the values as shown in
air flow and pressure etc. But the nozzle test cannot be Table 3.

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 Comp r essor Capacity
Receiver KW/ Total Other
Pressure phase KW information
in bar
1 2 6 Receiver
2 2.5 7.5 Volume 1m3,
3 3.4 10.2 Time taken:
43 seconds
4 3.9 11.7 Volume of pipe
5 4.2 12.6 network -
No load 1.8 5.4 Negligible
Table 3: Pump up test Data

The compressor capacity is

estimated using the equation.1
shown below: Free air delivered
using the following formulae:
Actual Free Air Delivered (Q) =
[(P2-P1)/P0]*[V/T] (1)
P2 = Final pressure after filling [kg/
cm2 (a)]
P1 = Initial pressure [kg/cm2 (a)]
after bleeding
P0 = Atmospheric Pressure [kg/cm2
(a)]
V = Storage volume in m3 which
includes receiver, after cooler, and
delivery piping
T = Time take to build up pressure
to P2 in minutes.
The above equation is relevant
where compressed air temperature
is same as the ambient air used for estimating the total power Case Study
temperature, i.e., perfect isothermal consumption in full cycle. For In one of the engineering
compression. In case the actual example, the full cycle power industry, three compressors of 50
compressed air temperature at consumption in this case would be KW each of 260 cfm is used. These
O
discharge, say t2 C is higher than 18 KW. To estimate the SEC power compressors were centralized & are
O
ambient air temperature say t1 C (as consumed during a full cycle shall be installed in a common room. The air
is usual case), the FAD is to be used. delivery lines are serially connected
corrected by a factor (273 + t1) / In the present case, the capacity & no return valve was installed. The
(273 + t2). of the compressor is estimated at layout is shown in Fig. 1.
The specific energy consumption 6.944 m3/mt or 245.39 fm and thus Out of three compressors, two
is estimated using the equation. (2) the generation efficiency is 93.37%. were operated and one was kept as
shown below: The SFC considering the power standby. After few months of
Specific Energy Consumption consumption per cycle for 100 cfm operation it was observed that there
(SEC) = KW/Q (2) (standard) is 7.34 KW. was insufficient supply of compressed
(at normal operating pressure)
This test not only helps to
estimate the specific power
consumption but also helps to
estimate the energy saving if the
operating pressure is reduced to
lower level. For example, the
compressor consumes 12.6 KW at 5
bar whereas it takes only 11.7 KW at
4 bar leading to a reduction of 7% in
power consumption. Further, the no
load power consumption can be Fig. 1: Existing air compressor layout

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 air at the process end and the

Comp r essor Capacity

third compressor was also M T Sambandam, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Kalasalingam university,
brought online to meet Madurai is bachlor in Mechanical Engineering and PG in Energy Conservation and
compressed air requirement. Management from School of Energy, Bharathidasan university. A certified Energy
The compressors pressure auditor by BEE, he has Conducted 300+ energy audits & doing research in the
gauges were checked and area of energy management. He conducted energy audits in cement, chemical,
found to be working normal as foundary, engineering industries, textiles and food industries. He provides
all three gauges showed the consultancy to industries in energy and emission study.
working pressure of 7 bar &
unloading pressure of 6.5 bar. Dr D Devaraj, Sr Professor and Dean (R&D) in the Kalasalingam University
This operation was in place for (Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education), Tamilnadu is also Project
few more months until a pump Director-Power system group, TIFAC-CORE in Network Engineering sponsored
up test was conducted in each by GoI. He is a graduate in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and Masters
compressor. in Power System Engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. He
obtained PhD from IIT, Chennai with specialization in Power systems Engineering.
The industry conducted an
His research interests include Power system engineering, automation and
energy study and as part of
simulation, Computational Intelligent Techniques, Fault diagnosis, Intrusion
this study pump up test was
detection, Intelligent Control techniques.
conducted in each compressor
during lunch time. Each Dr S Rajakarunakaran, Professor and Head in the dept of mechanical engineering,
compressor was started the Kalasalingam University (Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education),
individually after isolating the Krishnankoil, Tamilnadu is a graduate from Madurai Kamaraj University in
receiver from the supply Mechanical Engineering; MBA, Madurai Kamaraj University and Masters in
network. It was found to our Industrial Safety Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy. He
surprise that one of the is PhD from the college of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai. His research
compressors was not interests include Safety engineering and management, Condition Monitoring &
generating compressed air Fault diagnosis, Energy and Environmental Safety, Soft computing applications.
instead it was working on no
load and pressure gauge was
not showing any pressure raise. It was then
noticed since all compressors were connected in
series without a non-return valve which mislead
the operator by showing the gauge pressure
equal in all gauges installed in the compressor
panel. Infect one of the valves in one compressor
got failed. This failure could not be identified
during the normal operation. The failure of
installing a non-return valve in the delivery line
of each compressor has resulted a heavy
energy and money loss to the company.
Company was operating in the same condition
for about three months &w the estimated
energy loss was considering no-load power
consumption of 5.4 KW for three months for 24
hr operation is 11664 KWh and the financial loss
incurred is Rs 81648 @ Rs 7/KWh.

Conclusion
This case example shows the economic
benefit of conducting the capacity assessment
test. Since the employees and industry as a
whole are working in a target oriented business
environment they seldom find time to conduct
such test. Therefore they can engage external
agencies or can train their own employees to
conduct such capacity test on each compressor
at least once in a fortnight to avoid heavy
energy and money loss. 

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