‘Fly’ Safe With Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners!

We are all very well aware now of the ash clouds being emitted from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland and the disastrous effects it has had and still is having on air travel.

There are three main reasons why aircraft should never fly into a volcanic dust cloud.

Firstly the dust cloud can restrict the visibility of the cockpit crew.

Secondly the particles are abrasive and therefore if sucked into the jet engines, can cause severe wear.

However it is the third reason which I wish to discuss and link to the ash produced within electrical power generation plants from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and heavy oil.
Modern jet engines process enormous amounts of air. They pull air into the front of the engine and exhaust it out the rear. If volcanic ash is pulled into a jet engine it can be heated to temperatures that are higher than the melting temperature of the ash. The ash can melt in the engine and the soft sticky product can adhere to the inside of the engine. This restricts airflow through the engine and adds weight to the plane.

Volcanic rocks are named according to both their chemical composition and texture. Basalt is a very common volcanic rock with low silica content. Rhyolite is a volcanic rock with high silica content. Rhyolite has silica content similar to that of granite while basalt is compositionally equal to gabbro. Intermediate volcanic rocks include andesite, dacite, trachyte and latite. Pyroclastic rocks are the product of explosive volcanism. They are often felsic (high in silica). Pyroclastic rocks are often the result of volcanic debris, such as ash clouds.

This high silica ash is very similar in properties to Pulverised Fly Ash or PFA which is produced by the combustion of pulverised coal. PFA, or Fly Ash as it is widely known, has a Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) content of around 50%. Just like the volcanic ash in our atmosphere, fly ash can become very sticky at high combustion temperatures and can bake or ‘sinter’ onto the boilers heat tubes thus creating an insulating barrier which results in reducing the boiler’s thermal efficiency. The somewhat primitive means of trying to remove this baked on ash within boilers was to use steam soot blowers which ‘blast’ a combination of water and air at these heat tubes, in many cases causing fractures to occur and also not providing an ideal solution.

Primasonics have devised an innovative solution using Acoustic Cleaners which use sound waves to prevent the ash from building up in the first place. The result is immediate increased thermal efficiency, the prevention of ash blockages within the boiler and the elimination of any damage to the heat tubes. Take a look at this effective, innovative technology by following this link: http://www.primasonics.com/powergeneration_applications.htm

Just maybe Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners can find an exciting new application with jet engines!

Food For Thought - Menú del diá

Now that Sterling is almost worthless – certainly against the Euro, I find that visiting Mallorca (Majorca as you may wish to pronounce and spell it) is no longer a value for money experience. However one way to enjoy a good four course meal at low prices is to look for the Menú del diá (or menu du jour in France).

If the restaurant or bar is open from midday and serving food then they must offer this ‘menú del diá’ at lunchtime (la comida). It originated in Spain by Franco’s dictate that all workers must be offered a good, cheap midday meal. It usually consists of a four course meal, bottle of water and bottle of house wine for between €7.00 - €9.00.

A good example of this excellent ‘value for money eating’ is located close by my apartment at Carabela, Pto Alcudia, Mallorca – The Bistro Mar, set in between the shore and harbour. It is a really comfortable and relaxing place to eat.

A typical menu would be a choice of two hot and two cold starters, again a choice of four hot main courses, several deserts to choose from all with bread, olives, water and wine. You get plenty to eat and the food quality is excellent.

Value for money along with being fully satisfied with what you have purchased ... and the service not only applies to ‘menu del diá’ but to our worldwide range of acoustic cleaner customers - disfrute de su comida,

Titanic's Boilers

As you know from previous blogs, coming from Northern Ireland and working for a time close to the dock where RMS Titanic was built. I am fascinated by many aspects of this ship’s history. One of these relates to the Titanic’s boilers.

This great ship had 25 double ended, triple furnace boilers and 4 single ended boilers – giving a grand total of 162 fireboxes/furnaces. These massive boilers were 20 feet/6m in length and almost 16 feet/5m in diameter. They all burnt coal with the smoke and waste gases being expelled through three funnels (the fourth funnel was only a dummy!). Each of these furnaces had to be manually stoked by a total of 150 stokers. Backing them up were a team of ‘trimmers’ whose job was to bring the coal to the boilers for the firemen to use. A key part of the trimmers job was to ‘extract’ the coal evenly from both the port and starboard sides of the ship so as the ship remained ‘trim’ in the water and did not list. It was understandable therefore that this army of stokers and trimmers were known as the ‘Black Gang’!

These great boilers consumed around 600 tonnes of coal per day and of course when coal is burnt, ash is left behind. This had to be manually brushed from the tubes and shovelled out from the boiler – 100 tonnes of ash per day! Because the boilers were below sea level this ash had to be brought to the water level by high pressure water devices called Ash Ejectors which pumped the ash slurry into the sea.

I suppose thanks to innovative companies such as our Primasonics International, such old fashioned and ineffective devices, including steam soot blowers have been replaced by innovative Acoustic Cleaners which use sound waves to prevent the build up of ash within all key areas of the boiler – and without causing any damage whatsoever to the boiler tubes of structure. The result? Continuously cleaner boilers, lower maintenance costs and increased thermal efficiency. Take a ‘promenade’ through our acoustic cleaning web site especially the page on power plant cleaning applications.

‘Sounds’ Like The Perfect Spray Dryer

OK because I am Irish I am an ardent tea drinker, not that I do not like coffee. Did you know that spray dried coffee was invented in 1901, in Chicago by a Japanese scientist called Satori Kato? Since then spray drying of a wide range of ingredients has now become possible with advances in spray dryer design and operation. Today spray dryers in various design formats are used to dry such materials as milk powder, spices, flavourings, pigments, ceramic materials, enzymes and catalyst supports.

Spray drying involves evaporation of the moisture from the atomised liquid or slurry by spraying this material into a drying medium, usually hot air. There are three basic techniques employed for such rapid drying.

Co-Current – in which the material is sprayed in the same direction as the flow of hot air through the vertical vessel.

Counter-Current – in which the material is sprayed in the opposite direction as the hot air flow. The hot air flows upwards and the product falls through increasingly hot air to the base of the vessel.

Combined Current – in which the advantages of both types of drying are combined. The product is sprayed upwards and only remains in the hot zone for a short time to remove the residual moisture. Gravity then allows the product to fall into the cooler zone.

In all cases the exiting dry materials (which in some cases can have an extremely small particle size) exit the cone base of the dryer and are then passed into either a cyclone or bag filter to separate the material from the air stream.

However these spray drying systems are not without their problems which mainly centre around:-

• Material building up on the vertical side walls of the dryer, then falling off in lumps, so blocking the outlet


• Material building up and blocking over the base outlet


• Fine particles blocking the filter bags and also the filter discharge hopper. These serious problems which used to cause major and costly down time can easily and economically be eliminated with the installation of suitable models of Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners.

Should you wish to enquire about a particular spray dryer application just click on the following link and complete our Spray Dryer Questionnaire

Photo left:

Acoustic cleaner installed to prevent spray dryer material build-up.

Jazz It Up

You will know from my previous acoustic cleaning blog posts that I am a big band fan and take every opportunity to get to live performances. I have two more lined up for 2010 – Chris Dean’s Syd Lawrence Orchestra at Barrow in January and an excellent singer from the North West – Jason Isaacs with the Greg Francis Orchestra in Newcastle in March.

However, I have recently taken a liking for modern jazz after listening to the Back to Basi Orchestra and the very talented saxophonist Karen Sharpe. The last time I heard Karen play was at the excellent Rawtenstall Jazz Club in Rossendale, Lancs. I recently re-visited this vibrant club to listen to the fabulous Northern Jazz Orchestra. This 17 piece band literally ‘blew’ me away with their red-hot horn music. Their leader and drummer, Paul Rigby, leads this talented band superbly well and is a great drummer in his own right. I was talking with his father Alan who told me that Paul’s greatest disappointment was that he never met his idle Buddy Rich, although Buddy’s magic certainly lives on within the NJO.

It somewhat reminds me of our company’s ‘red-hot horns’ our innovative range of Acoustic Cleaners which provide superb ‘performances’ in over 45 countries worldwide - and in a wide range of plant applications.

Acoustics In Art

There are many ways in which acoustics are used in everyday life - from acoustic cleaners that help many industries maintain material flow through to the world of music and beyond. I am always keen to read news stories relating to acoustics so I thought I would share with you two that I encountered recently.

The first is an interesting product called Acoustic Art Panels. The makers claim they have a unique facing which makes them suited to a 'limitless range of applications'. They cite private homes, conference rooms, boats, bars and restaurants as examples. I have not seen any of these panels in person nor do I know anyone (yet) who has purchased and used them so I am sitting on the fence as to whether these panels carry any real 'acoustic' value but they certainly sound interesting.

The second is a documentary film entitled 'Visual Acoustics' which celebrates the life of Julius Shulam who died this summer aged 98. Shulam is viewed by many as the world's greatest ever architectural photographer who was able to capture virtually every modern architect's work since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry. I have yet to see the film but the review I chanced upon along with a youtube video of the trailer has whet my appetite and I will be on the lookout for the first opportunity to see it.

It never ceases to amaze me how much we like to use the word acoustic - it must count for something special!

Life Is A Circus!

As I have mentioned in the dim and distant past, I was born in a small County Down, Northern Ireland town called Dromore. Indeed I have mentioned in a previous blog about my grandfather Joseph Magill who originally was a boot maker. In this link (a snapshot from 1910) you can see his name mentioned within a summary of Dromore.

During my childhood days and early teens, there were few cars, little television and certainly meagre amounts of pocket money which was usually completely spent within the hour in the many little sweet shops which existed at that time. However there were times when I did save my pocket money for a few annual special occasions:-

Christmas – Summer Holidays – Halloween – and … the Touring Circus

A couple of weeks ahead of the arrival of the circus, posters would be pasted up in glorious bright red, yellow and blue announcing the arrival date for a touring circus – what excitement that caused!

There was one particular field on the outskirts of my small town called the pinnacle meadow, where the circus pitched camp. There were two Irish circuses which visited Dromore and both are still going strong today. They were Duffy’s Circus and Fossett’s Circus, one of which, even today, features a fantastic tiger act! As kids we would sit and watch the canvas big top being erected, the various animals being housed and all the circus paraphernalia being unloaded. If we were lucky (or cheeky) enough, a few of us would be offered a free admission ticket in return for helping do the more mundane jobs necessary within routine circus life.

Eventually it was ‘Showtime’ and we eagerly entered through the multi-illuminated entrance and took our seats on the hard wooded, tiered seating at the back of the tent. For those two hours we sat spellbound watching all the acts. When not performing, many of the acts climbed up on top of a lorry into the ‘orchestra pit’ to play various musical instruments.

OK so I have not talked about our innovative Acoustic Cleaners today – instead I just indulged myself in a little bit of reminiscing!