From Rob Milner, Global Business Development Director frills
Every week of the year, tens of thousands of machines operate in factories around the world, working around the clock to prepare food for billions of consumers. This process involves tasks such as mincing, pulping, and forming products such as bread and cheese, or filling drink bottles. Throughout the world’s food processing and production complex, compressed air-powered pneumatic tools have become the technology of choice impacting hundreds of different food and beverage processes.
However, undetected leaks can have serious consequences, including product contamination, reduced yields, increased downtime, and risks to worker safety. Effective use of predictive maintenance tools is critical to keeping your plant running properly.
Compressed air is very common in the food industry for a variety of reasons, including the use of graspers in beverage production lines. Common industry applications feature processes with multiple air compressors to move products, operate pneumatic tools, or pump liquids for various purposes such as production lines, packaging, and cleaning. It is built like this. However, the downside is that compressed air leaks typically worsen over time and can cause serious problems for your manufacturing facility. Therefore, regular inspection and maintenance of compressed air systems is essential to ensure product quality and safety.
Sector-specific challenges, from cost to pollution
The food industry is highly regulated to ensure public safety and protect consumers from potential health risks. Air leaks then pose industry-specific problems. First, vacuum leaks can contaminate food and beverages. The air inside a factory can contain particles and contaminants that are harmful to food. When a vacuum leak occurs, these contaminants can enter the product, leading to spoilage, quality issues, and even consumer health risks. Second, compressed air leaks can reduce efficiency and increase operating costs.
Compressed air systems are energy intensive and require large amounts of electricity to operate. If there is a leak in the system, the compressed air pressure will drop and the system will have to work harder to maintain the required pressure, increasing energy consumption and operating costs. Working around the clock is not uncommon in the food industry, so these additional costs can quickly add up. One air compressor leak can result in hundreds of dollars worth of additional costs per year, and multiple leaks can quickly add up to five-figure sums. There is a gender. Compressed air leaks can also affect the performance of pneumatic tools and equipment, reducing efficiency and leading to downtime for repairs and maintenance.
Acoustic solutions fit for purpose
To avoid problems such as reduced product quality, increased operating costs, and consumer safety risks, food and beverage manufacturers regularly inspect their compressed air systems to ensure that they are working properly and to avoid leaks. You need to make sure that there are no. This can be done using an acoustic imaging camera. Acoustic imaging cameras are imaging devices used to identify pressurization leaks in compressed air systems or detect partial discharges from high voltage electrical systems. It consists of a group of microphones that can detect the location of the sound source (in this case the location of a compressed air leak), allowing for precise visualization and identification of the source of the sound. Quickly identify even the smallest leaks, improve system efficiency, reduce operating costs, and ensure food and beverage quality and safety.
Acoustic cameras also accurately detect leaks at large distances without interrupting operations, even in noisy environments. Other benefits include automated distance, leak size, and cost estimation with AI, which greatly facilitates predictive maintenance decision-making in the food and beverage industry.
Advantages of acoustic cameras for detecting air leaks in the food industry:
- Save time, energy and money by discovering hidden compressed air leaks in a timely manner.
- Early detection of air and gas leaks avoids unplanned downtime and improves operational efficiency.
- Quickly scan large areas and pinpoint critical issues, even from a distance or in noisy environments.
- Assures product quality and compliance of production facilities and equipment with applicable regulations and controls.
- It requires minimal training and can be easily incorporated into your maintenance cycle.
- Inspections can be performed without interrupting business operations.
- Through machine learning-based analytics, we provide real-time results and actionable data to inform maintenance and repair planning.
In short, compressed air leak detection helps ensure food is compliant with regulations and equipment downtime can affect product integrity as well as accessibility to food and beverage products. It is essential for the food and beverage industry to prevent thyme. Integrating acoustic imaging technology into compressed air leak detection can significantly improve plant process efficiency and help maintain the quality and safety of the products that fuel the world.
Rob Milner, Global Business Development and Engineering, has held business development and sales roles at the following companies: frillsHe has been with Teledyne Company for 20 years and has experience across multiple industry vertical businesses. Milner holds a Master’s Degree (Metallurgical Engineering) and a Bachelor of Science Degree (Metallurgical Engineering). His research has been published in his NACE journal on the topic of carburizing advanced alloys.