You have not told us the size of the piping conveying your product, what it is you are conveying, or the layout of your system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, please tell us more. what formula are you utilizing?

Voltage, amperage and phase are also needed.

Please post it here.

The most efficient system is what is done in a linear fashion with no bends, curves or restrictions hence lower power requirements

but it all depends on what your system looks like.

Also you have to remember that compressed air is lazy just like electricity and water and it will escape whenever possible, compressed air is a "huge" provider of usable power and you need to give us more information.

The storage tank you are questioning has a huge storage capacity of potential usable energy and and useable energy storage that would make up for having a smaller compressor hence the lower pressure. Compressed air also loses energy due

to heat from movement of the compressed air. you may need a radiator heat exchanger on the delivery side-the denser and cooler the airflow the greater the power delivered to the end point.

If the storage system has a regulator and check valves to allow metered pressure and energy delivery so much the better.

Check for leaks using soapy water at all air line connections and visible weldments that control and deliver air flow.

My big question is why is it you are not using a blower for the same job??????

Before you do anything else change the oil air separator if the air compressor is so equiped. drain the air out of the entire system and open the drain plug or valve on the bottom of the tank to make sure all the water is out of the air tank-let it sit over night to allow all the water to drain out-if no water comes out you have a big job on your hands cleaning out the tank- if there is a manway in the tank it will make cleaning easier.

Water in a compressed air tank will affect system performance and increase damage to components.

I would check the amperage of the system under load and then unloaded or vice versa and determine if the compressor motor is failing replace it.

I can not emphasize this enough you have to work safely around compresssed air as it can cause serious and possibly fatal injuries

due to punture injuries to the skin.

LOCK OUT AND TAG OUT ALL ELECTRICAL SWITCHES AND LOCK OUT ALL AIR VALVES BEFORE WORKING ON THE SYSTEM. LASTLY BE SURE THE AIR SYSTEM IS DRAINED OF COMPRESSED AIR BEFORE WORKING ON THE COMPRESSED AIR COMPONENTS!!!!!!!

The three corners of the safety triangle are AWARE, ALERT AND ALIVE. ■

I use a "First Approximation" equation to get an approximate idea of compressor power requirements. It is on page 81 of my "Handbook of Pneumatic Conveying Engineering" published last year by Marcel Dekker. It is: Power = 0.128 V ln(p2/p1). So if your air flow (V) is 774 cfm and your delivery pressure, p2 is 30 psig (45 psia) my calculation gives a compressor power requirement of about 108 hp. ■

Figure13.12 shows that 120,000 lb/h of barite can be conveyed through the 4 in bore, 165 ft long pipeline with 200 cfm of air at 30 psig. The solids loading ratio is about 130 and the conveying line inlet air velocity will be about 800 ft/min (see equation on page 157). This is dense phase conveying. Figure 13.9 relates to the dilute phase conveying of barite through a 2 inch bore 110 ft long pipeline. Pressures only go up to 8 psig and this is entirely dilute phase conveying, with minimum values of conveying line inlet air velocity of about 2500 ft/min. So for dilute phase conveying you are going to need about three times the air flow rate. The influence of solids loading ratio on conveying line inlet air velocity for cement, for example, is shown on page 120.

Figure 3.10 relates to a screw compressor. You can use air at any pressure for dilute or dense phase conveying but if your reception point is at atmospheric pressure, 100 psig is typically the maximum because of the air expansion problems and the need to step the pipeline (see chapter 9). With your dense phase system at 30 psig and 800 ft/min, stepping the pipeline is not essential, particularly if you need to purge the line quickly. For a dilute phase system at 30 psig and 2400 ft/min a stepped pipeline would be recommended. ■

The ratio of air flow rates will depend very much on the two conveying systems being compared. For your case it is just a matter of calculating the conveying line inlet air velocities for the two cases. You will see direct comparisons presented in my book in Figures 10 and 17 to 19 and that is just in Chapter 4. In Chapter 7 I compare specific energies, which is probably more important, and these can easily vary by as much as ten to one between dilute and dense phase conveying. ■