THIS IS CERTAINLY NO APRIL 1st JOKE

One of this year’s ‘April 1^st’ stories actually related to Audio Sonic Horns! It began by saying that the rise of social media and the digital world has resulted in people wanting to express themselves like never before. Now Peugeot is taking this passion for individuality to the next level.
It went on to say that from July 2014 production onward, brand new Audio Sonic technology will be a standard feature across the entire Peugeot range. This state-of-the-art new technology allows customers to personalise their car horns to reflect their taste and character.
You can read the full article by clicking on the following link:-

http://www.carpages.co.uk/peugeot/peugeot-audio-sonic-horn-01-04-14.asp

Of course we at Primasonics International know quite a lot about Audiosonic technology having developed it over the last 20 years as the basis of our range of Audiosonic Acoustic Cleaners. Did you know that audiosonic sound waves can be used to de-bond particulate which build up on steam boiler tubes, fan blades, filter bags, silo walls and a host of other applications? All it takes is a few seconds ‘sounding’ at periodic intervals to prevent, for example, ash build up on boiler tubes or cement side wall build up and bridging inside a silo.

Unlike other older cleaning methods there is no need for manual entry, no damage to plant, no corrosion or erosion – just powerful, effective and totally safe acoustic cleaning. Both the range of industries and plant applications is huge and maybe that is why we have been successful in exporting this fantastic sonic sound wave de-bonding technology to almost sixty different countries worldwide.

Below is a typical industrial boiler installation using a 75 Hz audio acoustic cleaner from our Prima Range which has audiosonic frequencies from 420 Hz down to 60 Hz depending on the application.

Literally in a few seconds you know you’re onto a winner!

I must admit that I personally am not ‘big’ on the Winter Olympics, however I sat spellbound watching Lizzy Yarnold win the women’s skeleton event – a real British gold medal ‘slider’. She hurtled down the ice tunnel with its numerous banked curves, covering the 1,500 metre course in just over 58 seconds.

Gold Medal winner Lizzy Yarnold    

The sport evolved in the Swiss resort of St Moritz in the late 19th century when wealthy British tourists took to cavorting around town on sleds, looking apparently, like skeletons. The sport featured in the 1928 and 1948 Olympics, with Britain bagging bronze both times, before sitting out the next 54 years. It was reinstated for Salt Lake City in 2002.

It was the sheer speed and power produced by Lizzy in order to cover every inch of the ice track to quickly prove that she was a winner that made me think about the sonic cleaning power of Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners. Within boiler plants for example, the powerful but totally safe sonic sound waves travel at 344 m per second an in a 360° radius to prevent ash from building on boiler tubes, economisers, air heaters, filters, ESPs and SCRs. Just a few seconds ‘sounding’ at periodic intervals is all it takes to prove that acoustic cleaning is a real ‘gold medal winner’. Find out more at www.primasonics.com & www.quattrosonics.com

Boiler Plant Acoustic Cleaner 

Sixty Years of Acoustic Design!

This year is the 60^th anniversary of the First World War which began on July 28, 1914. No doubt that leading up to this historic date, our daily lives will be full of constant reminders of this horrific war in which more than nine million combatants were killed. However throughout all the suffering, some positives did emerge – new friendships were made, new loves flourished and the science of acoustics was developed.

World War one was a mixture of old and new fighting techniques. On one hand horses were still widely used and trench warfare was still to the fore. On the other, aircraft became an ever more important tool providing each side with the ability to attack the enemy in its home land.

New equipment had to be developed to warn of the danger of approaching aircraft and this is where the science of acoustics began to play an important role with the development of Acoustic Location Equipment as a means to supplement visual warning of an air attack. Here you can see an early example of detecting the low frequency sound waves emitted from the aircraft engines.

Primasonics International have developed this science of acoustics to a new and exciting level with their range of Acoustic Cleaners which are employed to debond particulate and aid material flow wherever ash, powders or granules are generated, manufactured or stored. Find out more about this practical and highly efficient method of industrial plant cleaning at – www.primasonics.com

Cement Industry Needs Acoustic Cleaners

The cement industry is one of the foremost industries to use acoustic cleaning to deal with and, indeed, combat material build up problems.

From dealing with ratholing and bridging problems in silos to the necessary maintenance of id fans, filters and ESPs, acoustic cleaning has become established as one of the key components of efficient cement plant operations. Read more about cement plant cleaning and silo cleaning.

We have over fifteen years of experience dealing with cement plants around the world and regularly receive emails from delighted clients who have experienced significant improvement in their cement plant operations due to our acoustic cleaning technology. A good example is that of a cement plant client who had been suffering unscheduled shutdowns because of material build up on an ID fan. After the installation of one of our acoustic cleaners they couldn't wait to let us know that these unscheduled outages had ceased. Read more on our acoustic cleaning referrals page.

Our success within the cement industry has led to our being asked to share our expertise by attending  cement conferences and trade fairs around the world. As referred to in our last blog post, our Technical Director Mr. Alex Bergus recently conducted a seminar on acoustic cleaning in Indonesia. He then went on to attend the Cemtech Asia 2012 event - photographed below at the Primasonics International stand. 

Seminar Demand For Acoustic Cleaning Expertise

Acoustic cleaning is now well established as a preferred and innovative means of dealing with material build up - a problem encountered by many industries. The resulting demand for our acoustic cleaners seems to increase every year as does the demand for our expertise at conferences and seminars.

Here is our Technical Director, Alex Bergus, photographed whilst conducting a seminar on acoustic cleaning technology at a recent conference in Indonesia.

 

For anyone who cannot get to such seminars but who is interested in learning more about acoustic cleaning technology and the benefits it brings, you may find the following information useful:

Concept of Acoustic Cleaning
Acoustic Cleaning FAQ

Explosive New Application For Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners!

When I was a kid and growing up in the small Ulster town of Dromore, we had to look for simple, cheap yet exciting ways to have some fun. I vividly remember one such form of entertainment when recently Primasonics International received an enquiry from a company in India who had a problem storing and discharging calcium carbide.

Back to my youth for a moment and my first contact with calcium carbide which was (indeed, still is for cavers) used as a fuel for carbide lamps. What we did as kids was to buy some rocks of calcium carbide from the local ironmongers, get a tin can which had a press on lid, punch a small hole in the base with a nail to make a cannon. We would then place a small piece of the calcium carbide in the can, spit on it, replace the lid and hold a lighted match over the small hole. The result was BANG - the lid flew off!

This video clip demonstrates my point!

So why does the explosion happen? Well, calcium carbide reacts with water to produce the explosive gas acetylene plus calcium hydroxide known as "slaked lime".

CaC2 + 2 H20 —› C2H2 + Ca(OH)2

However, do not think that calcium carbide is an out of date chemical. China, for example has the capacity to manufacture 17 million tonnes per year, mainly as a raw material for the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride. Calcium carbide itself is manufactured industrially in an electric arc furnace from a mixture of lime and coke at approximately 2000˚C and this method of production has not changed since its invention in 1888.

CaO + 3 C —› CaC2 + CO

The powder when stored in silos can become a little sticky, hence the Indian manufacturer saught our help with silo cleaning - ie. to prevent side wall build up and to aid material flow from the silos.

After studying the silo drawings and calcium carbide physical specification, we recommended the installation of a Primasonics Acoustic Cleaner Model PAS-75 to be mounted on top of each of their silos. We are now also working on an acoustic cleaner solution for the economiser section of their waste heat recovery boiler as well. Our local agent is now arranging to visit with this company to progress the enquiry to a satisfactory conclusion.

How strange indeed that a material I first came across as a boy has come back to me almost 60 years later as a good application for our acoustic cleaners.

Pre-Heater ID Fan Problems: Acoustic Cleaner To The Rescue

Cement silo cleaning that is conducted in an effective and safe manner is a priority for all cement plants around the world.

Cement as a material (like coal and gypsum) has properties which under certain conditions will cause it to cling to silo walls and create blockages. The results of this can be very costly and dangerous - loss of storage capacity, production delays and sometimes even serious and fatal accidents if attempts at manual cleaning are attempted. (Read more about health and safety in the cement industry)

So not only is effective silo cleaning required but also safe silo cleaning. Our acoustic cleaners meet the criteria for both. Indeed, in cement plants there can be other problems such as material build-up on pre-heater id fans.

We recently supplied our PAS-120 acoustic cleaner for installation on a pre-heater ID fan in a cement plant in Malaysia. Previously, the plant was having to stop the fan every 25 days to totally clean it but since the PAS-120 was installed that has not been necessary.


The only time they have stopped the fan since the installation of our acoustic cleaner has been to check to see if there had been any material build-up. What did they find? No build up at all inside the fan. Not surprising therefore that the company has since contacted us to express their satisfaction with the performance of our product. So much so that they now want our agent back on site to discuss other fan cleaning and silo applications!

Read more about cement plant cleaning and silos

Visiting Acoustic Cleaner Clients & Recipe For Returning Home

Did you ever have a day when simple ideas and plans just worked out so well? OK not many I am sure; however I had just such a day a few weeks ago. As Managing Director of Primasonics International I do not get the chance to revisit existing business friends and customers especially if they are located in London – let me explain.

Last year, after conducting extensive trials, we sold a number of our acoustic cleaners to London Waste, located at the Ecopark in Enfield, to be installed in one of their five power plants for preventing ash build up. This plant burns London’s domestic waste and turns it into electrical energy. Well to cut a long but interesting story short, the acoustic cleaners worked well to prevent the build up of ash within the boiler, thus both improving thermal efficiency and reducing operational and maintenance costs.

When I visited with the Plant Engineer again, he informed me that he was so pleased with the performance of our acoustic cleaners that his company were sending us an order for a large number of acoustic cleaners for the remaining four boilers.

As I live in Cumbria, it was a long trip (some 4.5 hours) to reach the site and of course I drove back home the same day. However it sure had been a very satisfying visit! I returned home quite late and not having stopped for any food, I raided my fridge to see what ingredients I could find with which to make a quick, yet tasty and substantial meal – and here is what I made .....

It took some 20 minutes to prepare and was sufficient for two people – it tasted great, so please feel free to try it! By the way, I used the fine textured proper Spanish chorizo, The nearest UK equivalent I can find is Tesco’s Cooking Chorizo - I prefer not to use the typical supermarket, lumpy cooked chorizo.

Don’s ‘Delicioso’ Dinner

Ingredients
Chorizo – 400 g cut into 30 cm chunks
2 Chicken Breasts cut into chunks
1 Small Onion finely chopped
1 Red Pepper deseeded and finely chopped
100 g of frozen peas or sweetcorn of a small can of either.
1 Tablespoon/15 g of Paprika (I like Spanish Sweet Paprika for this dish)
250 ml chicken stock
120 g/4 oz of roughly grated strong cheese such as Spanish Manchego or Mature Cheddar.
1 Pack (250 g) of Uncle Ben’s Cooked Long Grain Rice

What to do
In a deep walled pan put in the chorizo pieces and cook over a high heat for 4 minutes, turning the pieces over from time to time – remove the cooked chorizo retaining the rich red oil in the pan.

With the heat still high put in the chicken chunks and diced onion, stirring well to ensure that all the chicken pieces are tossed in the oil and sealed. Cook for 15 minutes on moderate heat.

Add in the paprika, diced red pepper along with the peas or sweetcorn and still in well, cook for a further 2 minutes before adding the hot stock, allow to bubble and turn heat to low.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Stir in the packet of cooked rice and stir well, allow to cook for a further minute.

Divide onto two plates, sprinkle over the grated cheese and place in a hot oven (180°C) or under a moderate grill for a couple of minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Learn about Spanish Manchego Cheese
Learn about the different types of Spanish Paprika

Ratholing – When Acoustic Cleaners Come Into Their Own

According to Wiktionary (the wiki-based open content dictionary), ratholing is an uncountable noun - ie. it has no plural form just as, for example, the word 'information'. According to Wiktionary and a range of other sources on the web, ratholing has several meanings and all of them poles apart!

The average person in the street might never have heard of the word ratholing but speak to any of the following and they will know the word well:

a) a poker player

b) a computer network/server technician

c) a cement plant manager

A poker player will be accused of ratholing if they have been seen removing poker chips from the table whilst a poker game is being played. This is just one of many poker card tricks used by poker players.

A computer network/server technician will encounter ratholing in an entirely different context as the term relates to the process where a proxy server identifies a client who is causing problems by generating too much traffic and is subsequently blacklisted.

A cement plant engineer worries about ratholing in silos and hoppers at the plant. Also referred to as funnel flow, ratholing in this context is when the silo or hopper is emptied and the central core of the cement inside drops but an outer ring close to the side walls remains and doesn't drop and empty. Ideally the plant manager needs to see all the cement emptied from the silo or hopper and the best way to avoid this kind of ratholing is to use acoustic cleaners.

I can’t say that I’m familiar with definitions a) and b) but when it comes to silo cleaning, I’m proud to have done my fair share of combat against ratholing!

Acoustic Locators - A Different Kind Of Acoustic Technology

Being involved with acoustic cleaning, I am always interested to read any material relating to acoustic technology. The truth is that acoustics can be used for all manner of things.

Just the other day in fact I came across the term acoustic location - essentially the science of using sound to pinpoint the direction of something travelling and its distance. Primarily used for military purposes as one might imagine, acoustic location can be conducted in different environmental situations - in the atmosphere, in water and also in solids - and it can be done in two different ways:

Active acoustic location

The principle involved is to use a signal generator and a listening device. Sound is generated to produce an echo and this echo is analyzed and the object's location detected.

Passive acoustic location
The principle is simply to detect the sound or vibration created by a specific object.

Passive acoustic location was used as early as the First World War in fact and continued to be used into the early part of the Second World War in order to detect aircraft engine noise. However, it became outmoded with the invention of radar. I was fascinated to read how, during both World Wars, acoustic location was used in various countries and in different ways.

In Britain acoustic mirrors were placed at strategic points around the coast during WW1 in order to detect any potential aerial attack.

(Photo) In Sweden they used acoustic location as anti-aircraft defence during the early part of WW2. Photograph taken in 1940 copyright Carl Gunnar Rosborn

In Japan, acoustic locators were used in WW2 - they opted for large metal tuba-shaped devices, subsequently referred to as war horns. See Wikipedia's page

Fascinating though it is to read all of this, I still prefer a more 'peaceful' application of acoustics. Give me silo cleaning any day!

Aqueduct or Acoustic Cleaner - The Principle Is The Same

One of my favourite authors is Robert Harris, former BBC Newsnight & Panorama reporter and columnist for both the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph.

I recently finished reading his enthralling book Pompeii, which although a fictional story, nevertheless is ‘woven’ around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the Agua Augusta aqueduct. Vesuvius erupted over a two day period in November 79 AD, covering Pompeii in 4 to 6 metres of ash and pumice, where it lay undiscovered until 1599. There are some amazing photographs of Pompeii on Flickr.

Being a keen reader of the Roman empire, I was particularly intrigued by the design and construction of the Aqua Augusta aqueduct, built by Emperor Augustus between 30 – 20 BC, which supplied water to over a quarter of a million people in nine towns in the bay of Naples, including Pompeii. This 96 km aqueduct originated in Serino and terminated in the naval town of Misenum. Roman aqueducts were extremely sophisticated constructions. Such aqueducts were built to remarkably fine tolerances, and of a technological standard that had a gradient of only 34 cm per km (3.4:10,000).

The challenge of an aqueduct was to get this gradient right, because it will overflow or clot if not right. Powered entirely by gravity, they could carry large amounts of water very efficiently. It again proves that very important adage – by ensuring you have the best materials, design and build, the performance is guaranteed!

That is exactly the principle we have adopted at Primasonics International with our range of Acoustic Cleaners. Our design, choice of materials (316 grade stainless steel as standard), construction and extensive model range guarantee that all our acoustic cleaners installed in a wide range of power generation and dry process industry applications (including carbon black) around the world continually perform to the highest standard to prevent particulate build up and ensure material flow.

The Roman Empire lasted well over 600 years; we at Primasonics International now have a proud, solid 15 years of acoustic cleaning technology experience behind us!

Audiosonic Ice Cream Sir?

Here is some audiosonic 'food for thought' .... Ice Cream.

No, I have not decided to give up the 'day job' and become an ice cream van driver! Did you know that if it weren't for audiosonic acoustic cleaners, there might be less ice cream in the supply chain? Imagine that ... you go to the supermarket and the ice cream freezer is empty or you visit the cinema and there is no ice cream to tuck into as you enjoy the movie. Not a pretty thought is it?

So what am I actually talking about here? Well, commercial ice cream producers have to operate ice cream plants where milk powder has to be handled in bulk. Bulk powder storage and processing can lead to serious system blockages, especially silo blockages. The resulting downtime to clear these blockages costs time and money and of course means less ice cream is produced.

As with all demand and supply situations, if ice cream supplies were down but the demand still high - and let's face it, ice cream is never likely to take a downturn in popularity! - then ultimately consumers could be facing having less ice cream available in the shops and/or a price hike to compensate for lower production levels.

Q: So what does any serious commercial ice cream maker when silo blockages occur in their ice cream plant?

A: First of all, ensure that the blockages are properly removed. Then contact Primasonics International to discuss the installation of audiosonic acoustic cleaners to prevent future blockages and costly downtime.

If the ice cream plant has particularly large silos, then we go to another level with our Prima Whip™ as the solution. This premium silo cleaning tool has already proved itself in sugar plants as a preferable, more effective and more hygenic solution. The food production and processing industries have to look to reducing downtime and maintenance costs as a key issue and the value of our audiosonic acoustic cleaners in this task cannot be underestimated.

What better to help produce premium ice cream … the premium Prima Whip™!

** Some interesting reading material ....

Silo Cleaning Systems and audiosonic acoustic cleaners.

Ice Cream Production & Consumption Statistics

Ice Cream Facts including the global value of ice cream estimated @ £7.5 billion!