Fortunately, industry is also becoming increasingly concerned about our environment and the impact on it. Of course, the cost structure in our customers' companies also has a not inconsiderable influence on this development.

The initial situation - compressed air is a valuable commodity

Compressed air is absolutely essential in many applications in order to deliver the required performance and its use is therefore often unavoidable. What is unfavourable is that in most compressed air systems, less than 15% of the electrical energy used is actually available as useful energy in the form of compressed air in the respective application. Looking at it the other way round, more than 85% of the energy used is lost.

Compressed air is a valuable form of energy because it is produced at great expense. Starting with the creation of the necessary infrastructure, the costs for electrical energy and the maintenance costs. Every leak and thus the unintentional loss of compressed air already produced from pipes and connections costs money.

The project - automatic processing of blind rivets must become more efficient

It was worth putting the proven and reliable GAV automatic riveting machines, which are in use in many small and large industrial companies worldwide, through their paces to find potential savings. Ideas were collected and tested in CFD simulations and empirical tests.

The result - improved technology

Thanks to numerous system modifications and the resulting customised setup, air consumption was reduced by up to 24%. Despite the reduced compressed air requirement, the performance of the GESIPA® Automatic riveting machines could even be increased under certain conditions.

Considerable progress has also been made in the area of mandrel removal with the facelift of the automatable blind riveting machine. These modifications have generated a significantly stronger vacuum, which, among other things, has also made it possible to increase the previous maximum length of the hose package from 5 metres to up to 8 metres.

And that's new:

• Depending on the blind rivets processed, compressed air savings of up to 24% are possible
• Less compressed air needs to be generated to operate the GAV
• Due to the reduced consumption, there are fewer fluctuations in the customer's compressed air network
• The possibility of using longer hose packages significantly increases the flexibility of the GAV