Air Dryer Monitoring

Most compressed air dryers are fitted with timed condensate drains with strainers.

When these malfunction, or the strainers block, the dryer still produces condensate, but the blocked drain means that the condensate liquid builds up inside the dryer until the air flow carries these liquids into the air system. Seldom you see a dryer fitted with a dew point warning system that alerts an operator of a dryer malfunction.

For a production plant, the price of dryer failure is high. Water, once in an airline, can take weeks to clear or evaporate. Oil in an airline poses an even bigger problem. Once the airline is infected, it can take months or years to clear from the airline. Unlike water, oil does not evaporate. To compound the problem, many airlines have inadequate drainage. In most cases, flushing, or the use of pipeline pigs for airline cleaning, is not an option.

Contamination creates corrosion, which increases pipeline air leaks. Cockfield says many end-users are unaware of the cost of air leaks and the impact it has on their profit levels, and few, if any, air users have an effective air leak corrective action plan.

Sigma offers a variety of sensors or systems to continuously monitor the dryer with different signal options to reduce your cost of air dryer failures and maintenance.