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

Blowing Off Steam vs The Beauty Of Acoustics

In March 2008 I wrote my first blog post about soot blowers. At that time, particularly within the power generation industry, steam soot blowers were the most common means by which plant engineers endeavoured to keep boiler soot and ash build-up under control. As I wrote at the time, steam soot blowers were not without their problems, however, and acoustic cleaning presented a better alternative.

Five and a half years on, I am delighted to report that the perception of power plant operators has changed and there has been a massive swing in favour of adopting acoustic cleaning technology in preference to traditional steam soot blowers. 

Ineffective steam soot blower (on left) installed into boiler
Acoustic cleaner (on right) subsequently installed to improve boiler efficiency

So what would account for such a radical change? Well, because steam soot blowers rely on high pressure, boiler tube erosion can occur. This in turn reduces the boiler's efficiency and incurs repair cost. Also, the jet of steam and air generated by the soot blower is limited in the amount of surface area it can reach so build-up of soot and ash can take place in other areas.

Here is a YouTube video clip we came across which shows a steam soot blower working. For anyone unfamiliar with steam soot blowing, you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing is happening when you first watch the video. Then at around 50 seconds you can hear the steam. The principle of the idea is to clean the boiler so that the boiler, in turn, can make steam and send it to a turbine where it is converted into rotational movement and then into electricity and then of course into money. Looking at what is happening through our 'technical' eyes, we see two issues at play here, neither of which is good for the power plant:


1. For the soot blower to work, valuable steam generated by the plant has to be diverted to it and away from the money making equipment.

2. When you hear the steam in the video you can actually see it leaking out of the seals and being wasted. The steam should be going off to serve a useful purpose but here it's the opposite, going back into the gas path.

With acoustic cleaners, no steam is required for their operation, there's no risk of tube erosion or corrosion and a greater surface area of cleaning can be covered. Plant engineers, to their credit, seem to have finally woken up to the reality of savings both financially and in terms of downtime that can be achieved using acoustic cleaning systems. The future of boiler cleaning in power plants can therefore look to a much brighter and efficient future.

My passion for the science of acoustics, however, is not limited to cleaning power plant boilers. It encompasses many things, one in particular being Jazz music which I have written about on this blog several times before. Here is a video that our Technical Director Alex Bergus came across which demonstrates what makes acoustics so fascinating.

You might at first think this is in slow motion but it's not. It was filmed using a camera with a high shutter speed.

Here is how Alex describes the clip ....
"Look at the lovely wave forms ... if you knew the distance between the bridge and where the string was being held down, then from some of the shots not only could you calculate the note but also the number of harmonics!"

How we love the science of acoustics :)

Kolkata to Cairo, Munich & More: Acoustic Cleaning Travels

The sights and sounds recalled by myself and our Technical Director Alex Bergus when we have travelled overseas to visit our acoustic cleaning clients are often colourful and fascinating. We have shared many of these already in our acoustic cleaning blog and today we're sharing even more ... and introducing a new boy!

The sights - these can vary hugely, from familiar ones such as looking at blocked silos on a site inspection to coming across unusual cars such as this Ambassador in Kolkata (capital of West Bengal). In production since the late 1950s the 'Amby' is an iconic car in India, based on the 1950s British Morris Oxford and it's not every day that we get to see one!

 

The sounds - these are certainly no less varied. It might be the familiar sound one of our acoustic cleaners being tested after installation on a silo in the hot sun or conversely the unfamiliar grunt of a camel as it passes by on patrol at the Great Pyramids of Giza. Look closely in the photograph below (taken by Alex) and you will see the policeman on his camel. There’s also our post from July (click here) where you can see the camel in question close up!

It is not always hard work out under the hot sun of far flung destinations, however. From time to time we are invited to attend and often speak at international conferences and trade fairs. Here is Alex talking to attendees at a recent Waste to Energy conference in Munich. 

The photograph was taken by our new Marketing and Customer Service Manager Dan Keeling who took the opportunity to meet some of the European Waste to Energy industry's leading players.

Conferences such as these are great opportunities for us to spread the word about our innovative acoustic cleaning technologies and we relish the variety of questions put to us. For example, what are the benefits of acoustic cleaners and how do they compare to traditional steam soot blowers? We can readily answer these questions and it’s always great to be able to do this in person as we get the opportunity to demonstrate not only our expertise in the field but our passion!

However, for those of you that we don’t get to meet, here is a page of the most commonly asked questions we receive, including how the technology works, the importance of the shape, frequency ranges and compressed air requirements.  There are many more questions of course and there has not been one (yet!) that we’ve struggled to answer :)

Explosive Progress Of Acoustic Cleaning

Last year I wrote an article called Silo Cleaning & Stats and explained how our website statistics regularly reflect large numbers of companies searching for silo cleaning solutions. It’s not surprising really because silos are a key component for many types of processing – from raw materials such as aggregates to chemical compounds and of course foodstuffs.

We love to see this kind of statistic because we know that our products can solve a wide range of problems faced by silo operators. Why, might you ask, should we have such confidence? Well, there are several reasons, each different from the other.

First of all, we have not just 1 but 3 products we can offer to solve silo cleaning issues and ALL of them will perform their task quickly, safely and efficiently, avoiding the need for potentially dangerous human entry into the silo. Going into a little more detail ...

Prima Lance operation

a) If your silo is already blocked
We have the Prima Whip and Prima Lance. The former is installed through the top of the silo and comes with a choice of boom size (from 2.4 m up to 8.0 m). The latter is inserted from the silo underside. What makes both these pieces of equipment especially attractive to site operators is that they are readily portable, made from non-sparking aluminium and the power motors used take their power from compressed air so there can be no risk of dust explosion whilst silo cleaning is in progress. Click here to read more about safe silo cleaning.

60Hz acoustic cleaner on 30,000T silo

b) If you want to prevent build up within a silo
This is where our acoustic cleaners are the perfect tool for the job.  This photo shows our PAS-60 (60 Hz) model, currently the most powerful of its type in the world, installed on a 30,000T cement silo in India where extreme climate conditions had caused severe ratholing.

c) If you want level silo content
This is another issue for plant operators to deal with. Having an accurate reading of the amount of material within a silo can be critical to many aspects of the plant’s management – from purchasing and delivery to stock control and planning. Most sites have level sensing equipment installed in their silos and with acoustic cleaners installed, the level measured can be relied upon to be accurate because materials has been prevented from building up on sidewalls.

d) If you want to avoid explosive options
Amongst the alternative options open to silo operators is explosive cleaning. This is an extreme measure adopted when a serious blockage needs to be removed. Unlike our Prima Whip and Prima Lance which are safe and quick to employ, explosive cleaning is more time consuming, creates more downtime and is potentially damaging to the silo structure if its use is not conducted correctly. Explosive cleaning in itself has variations on a theme – some companies offer a method where carbon dioxide is ignited, others use methane and oxygen. All of them, however, operate with the same principle of relying upon the explosion they create to break up the silo blockage.

They say that clarity is power and that in turn creates confidence. Hopefully the clarity of what I've shared with you today offers confidence in the power of acoustic cleaners and the other technologies we provide to tackle silo cleaning problems.

Dynamic Cyclone Cleaning

1 billion tonnes of cement – that’s the estimated amount currently produced in the world per annum and with cement production involving the handling and processing of dry powder materials, it is not surprising that plant operatives are constantly on the lookout for solutions to their dry material build up problems.

We’ve talked before in our acoustic cleaning blog about  silo and id fan cleaning in cement plants and today we tackle another issue they have to deal with …. blockages in dynamic cyclones.

Dynamic cyclones can be prone to impeller blockage and damage. This in turn can cause cyclone blockages and prevent efficient up-stream equipment operation. With the installation of acoustic cleaners the airflow can be maintained correctly and solids separated by eliminating particulate build up.

Installation of our acoustic cleaners into a cyclone can produce huge savings over time and we have a wealth of experience in this particular application.

To demonstrate this, here are some of the initial key pieces of information we require to allow us to quote for cyclone cleaning:

•    Nature of material being collected
•    Temperature inside the cyclone
•    Percentage moisture content of the material
•    Cyclone size and material it’s constructed from
•    How fast the build-up occurs
•    Information about the inlet ductwork

Click here to view a typical arrangement of acoustic cleaner installation on a cyclone. You can also download our cyclone applications pdf where you will find a dimensional drawing to be completed. Once we receive the completed questionnaire, we can then assess the optimum type, size and number of acoustic cleaners likely to be required and offer our best quotation for their installation.

Our acoustic cleaners are also an effective material build-up solution for dynamic cyclones in carbon black plant operations where there is the added challenge of maintaining air flow and efficiency in static cyclones and their associated ductwork . Click here to read more about our involvement in the carbon black industry.