Compressed-Air Supply Analysis for Reserve Depletion Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial compressed-air systems face challenges in maintaining supply security due to changes in consumption patterns over time, leading to potential pressure underruns and depletion of safety reserves, which remain undetected until a compressed-air generator failure occurs, highlighting the need for a method to ensure continuous coverage of consumption volumetric flow rates.
Innovation Solution
A method that automatically offsets the time courses of maximum delivery and consumption volumetric flow rates to analyze compressed-air supply security, incorporating the effective buffer volume and reserve capacity, allowing for proactive identification of potential overloads and measures to maintain required pressure limits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the compressed-air system operates with standard monitoring of pressure limits, then the system can maintain operational pressure within specified limits, but the method cannot detect gradual depletion of safety reserves or potential overloads until a generator failure occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The method performs preliminary analysis by automatically offsetting the time course of maximum delivery volumetric flow rate against the time course of consumption volumetric flow rate over several time points. This preliminary action identifies potential overloads and safety reserve depletion trends before actual failures occur, enabling proactive maintenance and preventing supply security incidents.
2Measurement precision
If the system uses manual monitoring and analysis of flow rates, then detailed analysis can be performed, but the process is time-consuming and may not provide continuous monitoring of supply security
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service through automated analysis where the control device automatically offsets the time courses of delivery and consumption volumetric flow rates, compares them at multiple time points, and determines supply security status without manual intervention. This self-service approach maintains high measurement precision while eliminating time loss associated with manual analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The method implements continuous feedback by automatically monitoring and comparing flow rate time courses at several time points, providing ongoing assessment of compressed-air supply security. This feedback mechanism enables real-time detection of trends indicating safety reserve depletion or potential overloads, maintaining both precision and timeliness.
3Reliability
If the compressed-air generators are operated with redundancy in parallel connection, then supply security is improved, but the system complexity and cost of maintaining multiple generators increase
Solution Approach 1:
The method introduces an intermediary analysis layer that automatically evaluates the offset between delivery and consumption flow rates. This intermediary assessment provides quantitative insight into the actual utilization of redundant capacity, helping to optimize the redundancy configuration and reduce unnecessary system complexity while maintaining supply security.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a method for the analysis of the compressed-air supply security of a compressed-air system which comprises one or more compressed-air generators (C1, C2) and supplies one or more compressed-air consumers via a compressed-air network (9),characterized in that a time course of the maximum delivery volumetric flow rate MDVF(t) is recorded, estimated or calculated, that a time course of the consumption volumetric flow rate CVF(t) is recorded, estimated or calculated, and that for the analysis of the compressed-air supply security the time course of the maximum delivery volumetric flow rate MDVF(t) and the time course of the consumption volumetric flow rate CVF(t) are automatically offset against each other over an analysis period.