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Air & Gas Compressor
Challenge
Grover Corporation, a leading manufacturer of taper face piston rings for the air and gas compressor market, was recently asked to meet with the Engineering Department at one of our long time customers, a large manufacturer of piston air compressors. The customer’s Quality Department identified recently that 4% of the piston air compressors in the market experienced an oil pass through higher than the maximum allowable 14 particles per million (ppm).
Solution
Grover Corporation Sales and engineering personal met with the Production, Quality and Engineering Department and looked at the application. The particular issue was a two stage piston air compressor. Each piston was using three taper face permaseal rings and a three-piece oil control ring. Current oil pass through in about 4% of the compressors was over the maximum of 14 ppm. Grover engineers recommended the customer to focus attention to the "cross-hatch" pattern, used to ensure proper lubrication and seal of pistons in cylinders, and replace in each stage one of the three taper face permaseal rings with a butt but taper face piston ring with scraper groove.
After delivering parts with a very short lead time, the customer initially tested the new ring set design on one of the compressors that had oil pass through of 14 ppm (without re-honing the cylinder). After 24 hours testing the pass through just by replacing the piston ring set was reduced to only 3-3.5 ppm. When the new ring set design was used in a new cylinder oil pass by as low as 2 ppm was measured. Engineering was impressed with the total team effort from Grover to help solve this issue and eliminating the expensive operation of re-honing the cylinder for the recalled air compressors.
End result
Our knowledgeable staff engineered a customized solution, delivered with a short lead time, a high quality product that exceeded the customer’s expectation. Superior products. Exceptional customer service. Flexibility. Knowledgeable people. Reliable partner. That’s the Grover Corporation difference.
Contact Grover Corporation with your engineering challenges and we will apply the same methodologies and improve the performance and competitive of your product.