Durable Air Compressors

The archive of Pneumofore goes 50 years back to 1962 when a water cooled, rotary vane compressor mod. F80 was delivered. Soon, in 1966 and 1967 two more units mod. F120 were installed following the growing demand of compressed air in the Risetti forging plant. More large sized, heavy duty industrial Pneumofore machines mod. F200 were delivered in 1972 and 1989. This first F generation of compressors satisfied the necessity of the customer with the total of 715 kW installed power and the capacity of 7.400 m³/h. Today, at least one F200 is still operating. Despite the high capacity of compressors as big as F200 with 200 kW, Pneumofore started in the 70’s the research for air cooled solutions with increased efficiency.

In 1993 we supplied one UR2 air cooled rotary vane compressor with vertical design. This small unit served a limited production area. It was the first Risetti experience with an air cooled compressor which opened the way to the new and following generations of UR and UF machines. The question was whether Pneumofore would keep the same criteria of a simple and sturdy design, which were demonstrated clearly by the F generation. The R&D efforts to switch from water cooled to air cooled compressors are still made today, as no air cooled, single stage machine exists now, worldwide, with active sealing as big as the F360 with 360 kW and 3.720 m³/h. Today, we manufacture compressors only up to 250 kW with air cooling, also for hot climate up to 50° C, single stage and active sealing. For higher capacities, available on the market nowadays are multistage, water cooled, non-active sealing compressor technologies only. Thus, the F360 compressor still represents a record which has not been surpassed since 50 years.

Several F360 are in operation and regularly maintained, their low rotation speed makes them durable as no other thermodynamic machine. At Risetti, there is one F200 running since 1972, however, the customer opted for his enlargement for the new generation of air cooled, rotary vane compressors and installed two UF26 in 1998 and one UR26 in 2006. Each of these three last installed machines delivers 1.560 m³/h with 160 kW nominal power. This set-up is appropriate for the present production requirements of Risetti and our long term collaboration remains satisfactory, based on solid ground set by the previous generations of entrepreneurs and machine technologies.

The picture on top shows the water cooled compressor F200 from 1972 next to the air cooled UF26 dated 1998.