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Compressed Air Basics, Air Compressor Sizing Part 2 Archive
Portable Air
Compressors Fri 6th Jun 2014 at 11:07am, 5 comments
2016 (3)
Last week we left you hanging. We showed you how not to size up an air compressor and then
Compressed Air May (2)
Treatment & Breathing made you wait a week for the correct way.
Air Systems
April (1)

Nitrogen Systems &

So what is the correct way to size a compressor? 2015 (1)
Generators January (1)
The correct way is to determine the flow, pressure, duty cycle and ambient conditions. 2014 (26)
Heat Transfer & Chilled
Water Products October (1)
1. Flow & Pressure
Tanks & Piping
September (2)
In the USA flow is normally measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM). You may also see the flow August (1)
Electric Motors rating in m3/min, l/s, or m3/hr. Basically it's just the volume of air the compressor is supplying and July (3)
Lubricant how fast. A cubic foot is 7.48 gallons, so 1 CFM gives you 7.48 gallons of air every minute.
June (2)
Parts & Accessories Pressure is normally measured in pounds per square inch (psi), but you may also see it as bar, May (4)
mbar, kg/cm3, or MPa. I think most people reading this already understand the concept of April (5)
Services
pressure. If not, please read more here.
March (3)
Industry Links
I mentioned flow and pressure together, because you need CFM delivered at a pressure. February (3)
Helpful Information & Links
Knowing your psi without your CFM is useless, and knowing your CFM without knowing your psi is January (2)
Employment Opportunities useless. A compressor's CFM rating is dependent on the psi it's delivering. You must determine 2013 (10)
both.
Used & Rebuilt Equipment November (4)
Flow and pressure are inversely proportional, so with the same compressor as your pressure goes October (3)
up, your flow will go down. You need to make sure the compressor produces the correct CFM at August (1)
the correct pressure. Make sure you don't look at the CFM "displaced" rating. You need the May (2)
24 Hour Emergency "delivered" CFM rating. So a compressor brochure might say 125 psi max and it delivers 10 CFM
Service Available at 40 psi. If you needed 10 CFM at 90 psi for your application, then that compressor probably
wouldn't work. You have to call up the distributor or the factory to see what the delivered CFM at
90 psi would be. Categories

Certifications Every piece of equipment you have that uses compressed air should have a rating of flow and Advanced (2)
pressure that it needs. This information should be in the manual or on the manufacturer's
website. If not, call them and find out. Some tools, like nailers, give you the amount of cubic feet Basics (19)
State Certified Mechanical used per cycle, instead of a CFM. In that case you must figure out how many cycles you can do in
Contractor ­ License Energy Savings (10)
#CMC1249580 one minute. If you could put in a nail every 2 seconds, and the nailer is .3 cubic feet per cycle at
40 psi, then you'd be using 9 CFM at 40 psi. If you had a slow assistant and he can only do a nail Local News (1)
Florida Healthcare every 10 seconds, then when he's using the nailer it's only 1.8 CFM at 40 psi. Maintenance (3)
Engineering Association
You need to add up all of the CFM ratings and find out what psi you need. After that you must Tips (1)
Kaeser Factory Certified
look at duty cycle.
Compressed Air Challenge
Certification of Completion
2. Duty Cycle.

We went over duty­cycle when talking about reciprocating compressors. If you missed it, scroll
about 3/4 of the way down the page and read the section on duty cycle.

After figuring out the psi and adding up the CFM you need, determine how you're using this air.
Are you using this equipment all day long or are you using it for just a few hours a day? If you
have a constant use application, then either oversize a piston compressor by 40% or get a rotary
compressor.

Another part of duty cycle is looking at equipment that occasionally needs large bursts of air. Let's
say you have a machine that needs a large amount of CFM for just 30 seconds every hour, but the
rest of your machines use much less. Do you need to buy the compressor for the CFM of the
biggest machine? Probably not. That kind of problem can be solved with extra tank storage. Get
a tank large enough to supply the air for that 30 seconds, and make sure the compressor can fill it
up in less than an hour with all of the other things running, and you should be okay.

Vehicle maintenance shops that use diaphragm pumps to deliver oil and other fluids are good
examples of this. Your double­diaphragm pump may need 60 CFM, but you only use that 60 CFM
for 90 seconds at the most. Then it's another 2­3 minutes before you use the next pump for the
other fluid. So that's 90 cubic feet used (60 CFM at 90 seconds) every 120­180 seconds. You'd
only need a 30­45 CFM compressor with a properly sized tank to do that ­ you wouldn't need 60
CFM. Pretty much all of the other applications for a maintenance bay are 10 CFM or less. Getting
a 60 CFM compressor to run all day just for that is a waste. A smaller compressor with a bigger
tank would do the job, cost less up front, and use less electricity.

As I stated before, duty cycle is one of the most important things to look at when sizing a
compressor, but it's often the most overlooked. How often you're using the air is just as important
as how much.
3. Ambient Conditions.

I just said that duty cycle is often overlooked, but it's not even in the ballpark of being overlooked
when you compare it to ambient conditions. Have you ever been inside of a typical compressor
room? People stick air compressors in some of the hottest, dirtiest rooms you can imagine. The
only comparison I can think of is a boiler room, and I've seen compressors in boiler rooms (please
don't do that).

I've been in compressor rooms that were 140°F, I've been in compressors rooms where the dust in
the room was over a foot thick (grain dust, concrete dust, or saw dust), and I've been in
compressor rooms where the chemicals were so strong you could barely be in the room for 5
minutes without getting sick.

We understand that you may have to stick the compressor in these extreme conditions, because
you have no other choice. However, if you're going to put the compressor there, at least take that
into account when you buy it.

The CFM rating on all air compressors is SCFM, which stands for standard CFM. A compressor
manufacturer cannot list all of the possible conditions customers may have on its brochure.
Because of this, the manufacturers got together and agreed upon a standard. That standard is
68°F, sea level (or 14.5 psi ambient pressure), and 0% humidity. If your conditions vary, and they
probably do, then you must take that into account.

If you go up in altitude, higher in temperature, or higher in humidity, the compressor will give you
less CFM than the SCFM rating on the brochure or tag. Altitude affects it the most. If you are high
in altitude, then you need to oversize the compressor. A 100 SCFM air compressor in Denver will
only give you 80­85 CFM.

Humidity and temperature affect the air treatment more than they do air compressors, and the
effect is not as dramatic as going up in altitude. However, extremes need to be looked at. Here in
South Florida seeing a compressor room with 100°F temperatures and 90% humidity is not
uncommon. In that situation a 100 SCFM compressor will give you about 93 CFM. That's only
about a 7% derating, but if the compressor was sized for 90 CFM, and you had some pressure
drop in filters or piping, or maybe there's a small leak somewhere, then that 7% could make or
break you.

If you like doing math, here is the formula:

Ps = standard pressure, psi

Pa = atmospheric pressure, psi
Ts = standard temperature, °F
Ta = ambient temperature, °F
PPwv = par㥆䬾al pressure of water vapor at ambient temperature
rh = rela㥆䬾ve humidity

ACFM is the actual CFM that you will get in the conditions you have.

An easier way is to contact your local compressor salesperson and have him/her figure it out. In
addition to doing the math, they can use their experience and training to possibly find a better
solution or know of a trick you can do to make sure everything works properly. Speaking for our
company, we have guys that have been doing this over 30 years, have months of factory training
and multiple industry certifications. Whatever you're facing, they've seen it before and they know
what works and what doesn't.

4. Other Factors.

There are a few other things to check for.

1. Air treatment. We'll cover compressed air treatment in different post, but filtration inherently
has pressure drop associated with it. If you size them correctly, the pressure drop should be
minimal, but take it into account anyway.

2. Tank size. The bigger, the better. You can read more about that here. If you're buying a piston
compressor, then you probably have very little choice in tank size, and usually the tank it comes
on is more than adequate. If you have applications that need a large burst of air you may want to
get a surge tank. If you have a rotary screw compressor, then the rule of thumb is four gallons of
tank storage per CFM of the compressor. You may need more or less, depending on duty cycle.

3. Backup. If the compressor is essential to your business, you should always have a backup.

4. Multiple compressor solutions. If you are a business that runs multiple shifts and those shifts
vary in their air demand, then usually a multiple compressor solution is best. If you need over 100
CFM of air, then you also get in the area where a multiple compressor solution may be better than
just one.

5. Fudge Factor. You should always give your compressor a 10­15% "fudge factor." What I mean
by that is that things don't always turn out as planned. You might get pressure drop in your piping;
you might spring a leak; a filter could get clogged ­ who knows. As your equipment gets older, it
may consume more compressed air (this is actually fairly common). Getting a compressor with
10­15% more capacity than you calculated is often a good idea to cover for the unexpected. It's a
safety cushion. Now we always preach energy savings and using the most energy efficient
compressor you can get, and oversizing goes somewhat against that. However if your facility is
big enough for that amount to matter, then advanced compressor controls and large tanks can
make it so that the compressors only run in their most efficient state, and you won't waste that
10%.

"....But it's so much easier just to say I need a 20hp compressor!"

What's easier ­ taking an extra hour or two to do things the right way or buying the wrong thing
and then having your compressor break on you in the middle of production? If you have kids, I'm
sure they may complain about doing their homework sometimes, but you make them do it. You
know that doing their homework now results in deeper understanding of the subject matter later,
plus they if they don't do the homework, they might fail the class.

You reap what you sew. People spend days deciding what car they want to get. Sometimes
they'll put in hours of research. That's a good thing, because your car is very important to your
 life. In the same way your air compressor is essential to your business.

Put in the extra work before you buy it, and you will reap the benefits of having the correct air
compressor. It's an expensive piece of machinery. Why wouldn't you want to make sure you're
getting the right thing?

Additionally there are trained air compressor sales personnel, who have been to multiple week
long classes on how to correctly size and configure compressed air systems. You should contact
them and rely on their experience and training to get you the correct air system.

Comments
Thanks for the write up; this was very informative. Question: I understand that specifying flow,
pressure, duty cycle, and other things mentioned are important in choosing the right air
compressor, but could you elaborate a little bit on the ambient conditions? I get how temperature
and humidity would effect flow rates and pressures, but how do they effect the compressors
themselves? How do the mechanics and mechanisms of different compressors respond to varying
ambient conditions? For example, I imagine (please correct me if I\\\'m wrong) a high humidity
environment may cause issues with rotary lobes, claws, or something with small clearances since
there\\\'s now something other than air passing through the small clearances. Are there any similar
concerns (not necessarily humidity, but any other unfavorable ambient condition) when dealing with
regenerative/side­channel blowers? What about centrifugal fans? Thanks!

Tue 25th Nov 2014 at 7:25pm by Anonymous

In answer to the above question about how elaborating on the effect of ambient conditions: We will
have to address that in another blog post. The answer is too long to answer in a comment reply

Fri 9th Jan 2015 at 4:01pm by Greg Sinkovich

Thanks for the write up, very good!

Fri 3rd Jul 2015 at 4:00am by Anonymous

You have covered the basics well

Thu 10th Dec 2015 at 11:28am by S.Naryanaswamy

Great ..... i was totally benifited with your article.... tahnk you...

Sun 13th Dec 2015 at 12:42pm by Abdul khadar

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