What do you feel when you are in the air compressor room? Noisy and hot! Basically the air compressor is the electricity powered mechanical system with shaft and gears turning the electric energy into mechanical energy, and a lot of heat occurred during the machine running.
In the compressor, the compressed air needs to be cooled; the lubricant oil needs to be cooled. Either the compressor air or the oil temperature would stop the machine if it is too high. Mainly, there’re two cooling resources, air and water.
Radiator is widely used in low power air compressor
Air, the natural air is the best cooling resource, it is free, and you can get it wherever and whenever you want. Air cooling cooler is the most popular cooling equipment in the air compressor, while it is also widely used in the construction machine, agriculture machinery.,etc. even your car has the air cooling radiator.
The air cooling radiator is used to cool the compressed air or the lubricant oil in the air compressor, which is called air cooler or the oil cooler. Sometimes the air cooling and oil cooling is combined in one radiator.
Water cooling shell and tube heat exchanger
The advantages of air cooling radiator such as low cost, free resource, and compact structure can’t offset the low heat exchanging efficiency of air, even with the fan sometimes. For the big power air compressor, water cooling heat exchanger is more suitable as water has the biggest specific heat and it is the most efficient cooling liquid.
Unlike the radiator, the water cooling heat exchanger must have the shell, either the shell housing of the air compressor or the particular shell for the cooler to keep the water in and let the water exchange the heat with the compressed air or oil.
Inter cooler use the housing of the centrifugal air compressor
The water pipe system is needed, to supply water to cooler and keep the water circulate. So for the cooler replacement, it is very important to have the same dimension of the tube bundle to fit the shell, and same type of the inlet and outlet nozzles of the shell to match the existed water pipes at customer’s site, otherwise the pipes need to be reset.
Water pre-treatment is necessary if the water quality is not good, the excessive mineral content in water would corrode the tubes, fouling and block the tubes. Also the regular cleaning is needed for water cooling heat exchanger to have a longer working life. After all the water cooling cooler is more expensive than the radiator. Article of IGcooler, all rights reserved.