Category Archive:

Hycomp Gas University: Ammonia

Ammonia is used for far more than cleaning your oven, making your crystal sparkle or repelling moths. Ammonia is the compound formed by the

When it seems like everything is going wrong, who’s got your back?

Even the best products from the highest quality companies have been known to occasionally experience a problem or two. What sets a company above the rest is how they react to the situation.

In June of 2011 Hycomp shipped a nitrogen booster, to a fabricating shop near the Chicago O’Hare International Airport. This booster was designed to mate with an Industrial Solutions Nitrogen Generator and provide high pressure nitrogen for a number of their laser cutting machines.

Meet Ben Brough: OEM Account Manager

Meet Ben Brough: OEM Account Manager (He speaks “engineering”)
When you contact a company in the compression industry it is very advantageous to connect with someone that truly understands what you are talking about and how to offer specific solutions.

Original Equipment Manufacturer Account Manager, Benjamin Brough, comes to Hycomp with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and over 7 years of sales experience. He understands the technical side of things and can speak that

engineering jargon that causes the general public to wear a blank expression. This talent allows Ben to talk directly to OEM engineers and ensure proper information is exchanged in a way both parties can understand.

Ben has a clear vision of what true sales and customer service ought to be, which has made him a valuable addition to the Hycomp Sales and Marketing Team. “I enjoy the technical side of sales,” Ben explains, “Each application is like a puzzle that I get to solve, and I enjoy getting to know my clients and provide them with real solutions.”

“I look forward to working with current and future OEMs and providing them with solutions to their applications, no matter how detailed.” Ben has an entire sales and marketing team to back him up and build on the tools and the talents he already has. No matter the application details or intricacies of a project, Ben can and will provide the best possible sales and engineering experience when a client calls and needs his help.

Whether it is hydrogen or nitrogen boosting off generators, dealing with deep sea diving breathing gas reclaim units or offshore oil projects, Ben is ready to get right into a project and provide the best possible solution Hycomp has to offer. Every contact is an opportunity to help solve problems and keep applications progressing.

Hycomp Gas University: Argon

Sir William Ramsay discovered Argon with the help of Lord Rayleigh, in Scotland circa 1894. Argon is the third most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. Every year

Sizing Compressors – Complete Information

When precision is paramount – information is king. A well built compressor is like a tailored suit, exact measurements need to be recorded and

3 Situations You Need to Know About

Hycomp compressors fit into three main situations. This may seem like an over simplified view of what Hycomp offers, and that is why we like it.

Other than parts and service, these three “Hycomp Situations” are the main reasons people contact us. Every product in any industry tends to have a niche. These three situations explain the Hycomp niche in almost perfect clarity.

Hycomp Gas University: Helium

Description:
Helium is a unique molecule that is used for much more than inflating balloons at the county fair. After hydrogen, helium is the lightest element and has the smallest molecular cross-section of any gas. Helium is one of the rare gases in our earth’s atmosphere in which it is present in a concentration of only 5 ppm.

It is completely inert to chemical reaction and radiation. Its thermal conductivity surpasses that of any other inert gas and is three times greater than neon, its nearest inert competitor. Helium’s boiling point of -452.1oF (-268.9oC) gives it refrigeration capabilities beyond those of any other substance. Helium provides a high rate of permeability and ease of detection with only slight solubility in the bloodstream. It is nonflammable and is only slightly soluble in water. It is usually shipped at high pressures at or above 2400 psig at 70oF (16 550 kPa at 21.1oC) in cylinders and in bulk units. It is also shipped as a cryogenic liquid.

Safety, Storage & Handling:
Gaseous helium is commonly stored in high pressure cylinders, hydril tubes, or tube trailers. Liquid helium is commonly stored at the consumer site in cryogenic liquid cylinders, portable customer stations, and specially designed insulated tanks. To minimize helium transfer losses, the shipping container for liquid helium is normally used for storage.
Users of liquid helium must also take special precautions in addition to those necessary for the safe handling of such inert liquefied gases as nitrogen and argon. The extremely low temperature of liquid helium makes these special precautions imperative; it can solidify all other gases and …more

Pressure Drop: Understand it, Plan for it

There is nothing worse than making it through a technical project only to be disrupted by some critical detail that was overlooked. Pressure drop is often overlooked, misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

Pressure drop is often the cause of excessive energy consumption and poor system performance. If unaddressed before the purchase of a compressor or booster, you could be buying an improperly sized unit. If unaddressed or misdiagnosed for an existing system, it can lead to costly downtime, unexpected and even unnecessary equipment expenses.

Pressure drop is a term used to characterize the reduction in air or gas pressure anywhere in a compression system. A properly operating system should be designed with the least amount of pressure drop that is practical. For example, it is not practical to have long runs of undersized piping, but properly sized check valves are necessary and the pressure drop associated must be taken into account.

Imagine a freeway in a large metropolitan area that has only one or two lanes, onramps that bottleneck and numerous sharp turns. Traffic becomes congested and motorists have to slow down when using the onramps and navigating the sharp turns. Compressed air and gas systems experiencing pressure drop issues are similar to an undersized and poorly designed freeway. In this example the freeway represents the pipe sizing and arrangement, the onramps represent ancillary equipment such as filters, dryers and gas separation equipment while the sharp turns represent components such as valves, fittings and junctions.

What Causes Pressure Drop?
Any type of obstruction, restriction or roughness in the system will cause resistance to gas flow and cause pressure drop. In a distribution system, the highest pressure drops are usually found at the points of use, including undersized or leaking hoses, tubes, disconnects, filters, and regulators. On the supply side of the system, aftercoolers, moisture separators, dryers, filters and improperly sized piping are the main items causing significant pressure drops.

Remote Mounted Controllers

The advantages of remotely mounting a compressor control panel far outweigh the disadvantages, but when hazardous conditions are not a factor, user preference takes priority.

When dealing with a hazardous area where explosive gases will always be present such as a Class 1, DIV 1 environment, there are only two choices as far as control panels are concerned.

1. Mount the control panel to the compressor skid and utilize hazardous area rated panels (NEMA 7 for example) and components to handle the dangerous location.

2. Remote mount the controller away in a non-hazardous area.

Cost is always a factor in large capital purchases such as compressor systems. More often than not, remotely mounting a control panel is far less expensive than designing/building a control panel for a hazardous environment. Standard panels and components are far less expensive than hazardous rated enclosures. Specific glands or sealed conduit must be employed for wiring, but once again, the cost of the wire and glands is almost always much lower than mounting the panel to the compressor skid in a Class 1, DIV 1 environment.

Combine the advantage of lower costs with ease of use and remotely mounting a control panel is all but a done deal. Of course user preference always comes into play. Some end-users prefer to have a control panel mounted directly to the compressor skid, while others like to have a separate control room. In either case, Hycomp engineers have the skills necessary to assist in keeping your operators and process safe.

Hycomp Gas University: Natural Gas

Description:
Methane is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas. It is the first member of the paraffin (aliphatic or saturated) series of hydrocarbons. It is the major constituent of natural gas. Methane is soluble in alcohol or ether, and slightly soluble in water.

Methane is shipped as a nonliquefied compressed gas in cylinders at pressures up to 6000 psig at 70oF (41 370 kPa at 21.1oC). Liquefied methane (as natural gas-LNG) is shipped in bulk quantities as a cryogenic liquid on barges and tankers. Methane is a major constituent of coal gas and is present to an extent in air in coal mines.

Methane is typically available for commercial and industrial purposes in a C.P. Grade (minimum purity of 99 mole percent), a technical grade (minimum purity of 98.0 mole percent), and a commercial grade that is actually natural gas as it is received from the pipeline. (There is no guaranteed purity, but methane content usually runs about 93 percent or better.) Tertiary-butyl mercaptan is added in trace amounts as an odorant. This grade of gas has a sulfur content of 0.002 grains/100 ft3 (0.0457mg/m3) and a typical gross heating value of 1044 Btu/ft3 (38 898 kJ/m3). (416 kPa).
Methane is produced commercially from natural gas by absorption or adsorption methods of purification; supercooling and distillation are sometimes employed to secure methane of very high purity. Some California natural gas wells produce methane of high purity. It can also be obtained by …more