How to choose compressor for high pressure tanks filling?

Hello everybody.

Every week I get the similar questions:

• How to choose compressor for high pressure tanks filling?
• How to avoid mistakes?
• What is the main criterion?

Read that article or watch video till the end and you will get all necessary answers.

Firstly I would like to ask the question – what do you think, what is the main criterion for compressor selection for high pressure tanks filling?

Capacity?

Motor power?

Other ideas?

Please stop reading, scroll till the end of that page and and leave the comment – what is your main criterion?

My opinion, that

the main criterion is

TIME

Surprised?

I will try to explain with example.

Let’s imagine that you have 4 tanks 50 liters each. That means you have 200 liters total volume. You need to get 400 bar.

And you have only one hour.

We have simple formula. For capacity calculation we need to use volume, pressure and time:

Q (Nm3/h) = V (m3) * (P1 – P2) (bar) / t (hours)

Let’s put our numbers and we will get 80 Nm3/h capacity.

Q (Nm3/h) = 0.2 m3 * (400 – 0) bar / 1 hour = 80 Nm3/h

Yes, we don’t use the temperature in that formula, but I think it’s not necessary. The simple variant is enough for approximate calculations.

That’s all.

If you have one hour, you need compressor with capacity 80 Nm3/h. You can check the price and other parameters with different manufacturers.

If it’s expensive, you can take 2 hours and reduce compressor capacity.

Q (Nm3/h) = 0.2 m3 * (400 – 0) bar / 2 hours = 40 Nm3/h

That means you need 40 Nm3h compressor and it will be cheaper.

If you need faster just take a half of hour and make new calculation.

Q (Nm3/h) = 0.2 m3 * (400 – 0) bar / 0.5 hour = 160 Nm3/h

It’s quite simple.

I’ve made thousands calculations.

I’ve seen hundreds compressors, which were selected with mistakes.

I’ve seen compressors, which worked only one hour per day instead of 7-8 hours.

That means money was dropped to the window.

My religion says, that money has to work. 

If you spent 100 000 dollars for compressor and compressor works only 1 hour per day, that looks, as minimum, stupid.

Everything you need to understand is

what time do you have

to make your task with your compressor?

and using the simple formula you can calculate your solution exactly.

That’s all.

I hope everything is clear for you. 

I do believe you will never make mistake in compressor selection.

But if you still have any questions or you need some help feel free to leave a comment below. I will answer within a couple of days.

Good luck.

Regards,

Konstantin Shirokikh