TechTalk

Current accident at the Nürburgring (explosion of a compressed air tank) on August 2, 2024

As one of the well-known high-pressure compressor manufacturers, we have supplied many compressors to racing teams. These compressors are used in racing to generate high-pressure compressed air to operate fire extinguishing systems, high-pressure impact wrenches and vehicle lifting systems.

As a rule, the air produced by the compressor is pumped into larger compressed air bottles that serve as intermediate storage. The various applications are supplied with the required air from these storage tanks.

When air is compressed, the humidity contained in the ambient air drawn in precipitates and is collected and separated by several condensate separators. The remaining moisture is then dried in a downstream dryer unit with removable dryer cartridges. This is vital, especially when the compressed air is used as breathing air by the fire service or in diving.

But also in motorsport, the regular changing of the dryer cartridges is absolutely important, because if the dryer cartridges are saturated and are not changed, the moisture (condensate) gets into the storage bottles, where the condensate leads to pitting and rust, which can then lead to disastrous and dangerous "bottle bursts".

By the way, our new composite storage bottles 20L and 45L for 200 or 300 bar have no problems with this!

Since almost all racing teams have bought their compressors from us and have never reordered dryer cartridges, it is reasonable to assume that these have not been and will not be replaced.

Therefore, we urge you to change the cartridges regularly!

In our web shop https://ide.de/shop/ you can order cartridges for almost all compressors on the market.

Image: Michael Cola - stock.adobe.com