Industrial and manufacturing companies are turning to air over oil intensifiers to address an increasing variety of operating needs.
In settings where compressed air is the available power source, these handy components can deliver significantly higher pressures needed for certain tasks. Pneumatic pressure drives a piston in the intensifier, which then produces increased pressure in the hydraulic chamber that is output to your appliance. Two critical factors to keep in mind are pressure amplification and fluid displacement—both are conversely related by the design ratio.
A common application is braking. But air over oil intensifiers are equally well-suited to operate grippers and indexing pins as well as stoppers in environments where there is no hydraulic system onsite. Intensifiers can transform shop air that typically puts out 80-100 psi into vastly higher pressures.
With this, there is no need to purchase, install, and maintain costly hydraulic systems that take up space, operate noisily, and can leak fluid or other contaminants into the environment.
Take a look at the process in this video.
An Air Intensifier for Every Power Need
At W.C. Branham, we offer an entire line of air over oil intensifiers with ratios that range from 5:1 to 36:1. They are deceptively compact, but don’t let that fool you. With those ratios, the “least” powerful unit produces a 500% pressure boost, and the most powerful unit increases pressure 3600%.
We also make a compact air over oil intensifier to complement our OVLPRO® cylinders. The OVLPRO® comes in two sizes; 25mm and 44mm units with a 7.8:1 pressure ratio.
If One is Good, Can More Be Better?
In many aspects of life, the answer is yes. Sometimes, it can also be true in industrial settings. Using multiple air over oil intensifiers can be beneficial where even greater volume is needed to account for fluid displacement necessary to operate a particular machine or perform a specific task.
By nature, the area of the two piston surfaces dictates the ratio of pressure increase. If the air piston area has 10 times more surface area than the hydraulic piston surface, the resulting pressure in the hydraulic side is ten-fold. Conversely, fluid volume would decrease by that same ratio.
The resulting output volume of hydraulic fluid would be the ‘displacement’ available to pressurize an appliance. Intensifiers are limited in this regard if more output volume is needed. One can make up for this limitation by doubling up intensifiers to feed the same requirement with one stroke.
Among our W.C. Branham air over oil intensifiers, the fluid displacement varies. The smaller models produce .44 cubic inch displacement, while the larger models offer 7.068 cubic inch displacement.
As mentioned earlier, doubling up on the number of Intensifiers feeding a device is one option to gain the required fluid displacement. So, for example, if you need 10 cubic inch displacement, you could use two Intensifiers which generate 7.068 each to achieve your desired volume.
A Point of Diminishing Returns
Doubling up on air over oil intensifiers can be a good solution in some situations, but you may not practically have an unlimited number of them. A custom design solution may make the most sense, creating an air over oil intensifier to satisfy both your ratio needs and fluid displacement issues. Here at W.C. Branham, we love a good challenge—one reason so many customers come to us with questions and take away just the right solutions.
We can help you boost operating pressure without resorting to expensive hydraulics. Whether you need advice on an existing air over oil intensifier or custom design, just give us a call, or drop us an email.
