Ultrasonics is often promoted for compressed air leak detection - especially in terms of ROI or payback.

As you detect and repair leaks - doesn't system pressure increase - pushing even more flow through exisiting leaks (that were missed during the initial survey)?

Does a compressed air leak survey really pay in hard dollars?

Terry O

Depending on the plant type, if compressed air is mission critical, like in refineries with electro pneumatic controls, if the air goes, the plant is in trouble. In this case there is always at least one volumetric compressor running with a spare that kicks in automatically. Instrument air is one of the live bloods of such a system. Together with steam, cooling water and electricity.

If more flow is pushed by the existing leaks as leaks are repaired, then they become more easy to find, right? Will then, the battle against the leaks gets to an end at some point in the future???
Or the rate of new leaks is always greater than leak detection & repair rate?

Terry, if leaks are not fixed and it grows beyond the head of the people involved, someone easily will come with the suggestion: install another compressor, which is a major capital investment.

We have seen it with steam, there were times we needed two boilers to run, after implementing a survey on steam traps, we came to another phase: one boiler easily runs the whole plant, while the other on hot-standby. Putting two boilers on-line gives the problem that there is not enough load for both boilers to run efficiently.

I heard in the past:

1) extra dearator feed pump needed
2) bigger boiler(s) needed
3) dearator to small
4) bigger oil gun needed
5) pump discharge lines to small

and the list goes on...

If the list keeps going, the #10 would probably be justify hiring another mechanic.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Eugene,