Can I use compressed air to pressurise a control panel.
by Joe Powell
(Cheshire, England)
My customer manufactures cement based products for the construction industry.
He has dust extraction throughout the plant but the electrical control panels (IP54) are still subject to dust exposure.
Can we use plant air (dried) to pressurise the panels, just above atmospheric pressure, to eliminate ingress of dust?
Bill answers...
Hi Joe, and thanks very much for writing in.
The answers is yes.
The downside of doing so might be the high cost. Compressed air isn't cheap, though if there are no other solutions and the cost of not pressurizing the panels is resulting in high maintenance costs, then using compressed air is one solution.
Rather than just plumbing an air line with a regulator into a bulkhead fitting on the cabinet, you might want to google a company called Exair. They manufacture air volume intensifiers and vacuum devices. By this I mean that their devices use a little bit of compressed air (relatively speaking) through an internal venturi to increase the overall air flow into or out of something.
In your case, you would have to plumb the air to the intensifier from a non-dusty source of air, rather than pulling in plant air, but it might mean using less compressed air overall, and thus reduce your energy cost.
Cheers,
Bill
