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As air travels through the air lines, friction of the air moving along on the inner wall of the air line slows the air at the outside of the air stream, and the air in the middle moves faster as a result. This creates turbulence. Turbulence contributes to pressure drop.
Then, every fitting, every orifice the air travels through, every leak point the air travels past, slows the travel of the air and reduces the pressure. If air is moving more slowly, it takes longer to come up to pressure at a specific location. If that application is using air faster than it can arrive, the results of pressure drop is that the application will starve for air.
Obvious scenarios that will cause significant pressure drop are having the air supply line at 3/8" pipe size, and the application requiring 1/2" lines. As air exits the 3/8" line to the 1/2" port, it expands, and the pressure drops.
As air moves from the compressor receiver or discharge through the plant, the air lines should steadily reduce in size to the application, ensuring that the air supply to your application is sized correctly. Line size reduction at the application from the supply will help ensure that the air pressure remains constant there, assuming the lines are big enough.
Eliminate leaks, remove 'choke points' between the source and end uses of your compressed air and reduce elbows where possible to help reduce pressure loss.
In a system that's designed and built correctly, between the compressor discharge and point of use, the norm is to see about a 5-10 PSI drop. If you're seeing more than that, there's something wrong with your plumbing.
See here for information on air line sizing, and please click here for information on calculating pressure drop.
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