Regardless of whether users employ oil-free air compressors, oil-lubricated air compressors, or air-cooled air compressors, prioritizing ventilation in the air compressor room is essential—this is a critical factor for ensuring stable equipment operation. Based on past experience, over half of
compressor oil-related failures stem from oversights in or inadequate understanding of air compressor room ventilation, which underscores the importance of proper ventilation design.
The air compression process generates significant heat. If this heat is not promptly exhausted from the compressor room, indoor temperatures will rise gradually, causing the temperature at the compressor’s air intake to increase in tandem. This vicious cycle triggers two core issues: first, excessively high discharge temperatures will activate alarms; second, reduced air density in high-temperature environments directly diminishes the equipment’s air output capacity.
Ventilation requirements vary by the compressor’s cooling type:
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Water-cooled compressors: Most of the heat generated is transferred to cooling water via heat exchangers and carried away. Only a small ventilation fan is needed to expel the residual heat from the main motor, which suffices to meet the ventilation demand.
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Air-cooled compressors: These rely heavily on fresh air for heat exchange with the compressed air. Therefore, careful planning of the fresh air intake is critical. This intake should be positioned as close as possible to the compressor’s cooling air inlet. If necessary, a dedicated duct can be installed to introduce fresh air, preventing hot air inside the compressor room from interfering with cooling efficiency (the specific implementation depends on the compressor room’s structure and the user’s actual conditions). Meanwhile, ductwork must be installed to exhaust the heat-exchanged air outdoors. If ventilation is insufficient, fans or blowers can be added at the exhaust outlet to enhance air discharge capacity.
For air vent layout, the following principles should be followed:
- The fresh air intake should be installed at the lower part of the compressor room, while the hot air exhaust outlet should be placed at the upper part. Since hot air has low density and tends to accumulate in the upper areas of the room, this layout improves hot air exhaust efficiency and prevents the exhausted hot air from re-entering the intake, thus avoiding airflow short-circuiting.
- It is recommended to install the fresh air intake and hot air exhaust outlet on opposite walls of the compressor room to further mitigate the risk of airflow short-circuiting.
- Dust-proof mesh screens should be fitted at fresh air inlets to block dust, catkins, and other debris from entering the room. Hot air exhaust outlets should be equipped with rain shields to prevent rainwater from seeping into the exhaust ducts.
Additionally, as the air inside the compressor room is continuously used for compression and cooling, fresh air replenishment is mostly passive. As a result, a certain level of negative pressure is usually maintained indoors, which is a normal phenomenon. However, if the negative pressure exceeds the allowable limit, the size of the air intake or the intake volume should be adjusted promptly—excessive negative pressure not only reduces cooling efficiency but also decreases the compressor’s air discharge volume.
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