A questioned posed by the responsible persons at the Mannesman Hoesch Präzisrohr GmbH (MHP) plant in Burbach, was what are the optimisation potentials offered by a well maintained compressed air and distribution station? MHP manufactures an average of 30,000 tons seamless precision tubes with diameters of 16 to 90 mm. 2 ½ years ago they compiled an action plan, which besides an optimised running of the compressed air network, also entails a though rough leakage detection in the entire network.
Donaldson’s service was assigned with this task. A Donaldson service technician comes in every half a year and examines the entire compressed air network for leakages with measuring instruments, which have been especially developed for this task. In each case the locations are marked and eliminated by the MHP maintenance people.
The importance of the leakage elimination is supported by an example: a hole of only 2 mm in diameter in a 10-bar network and an eight-hour shift causes 192 m3 compressed air (0.4 m3/min) to escape. If one takes (realistic) production costs of Euro 0,03 per cubic meter into consideration, then in the case of continuous operation just as a result of the leakage elimination annual savings of Euro 6.300 can be achieved.
Due to the precautionary measures taken, MHP could reduce the consumption of compressed air by almost half: from an average 380.000 m3 per month to 210.000 m3. Helmut Korthals engineer and Manager of Maintenance & Environmental Protection Representative at the MHP plant in Burbach, estimates that approximately 50% of these savings are due to leakage detection and elimination. That would mean that the plant saves approximately 1 million cubic meters of compressed air and about Euro 30.000 compressed air costs alone by leakage elimination in one year.
Beyond that further positive effects result. At the end of 2004 production was taken up in another new and large production plant, which is with distance the largest compressed air consumer of the plant. MHP did not need to invest in the compressed air supply. The substantial additional requirements could be covered with the existing plants, because due to the optimisation measures, the consumption of air had so strongly been reduced. A further advantage: during the regular investigations of the compressed air distribution, Donaldson could already detect weak points e.g. cracked tubes and thus avoid machine downtimes.
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