Setra Blog

Engineering proper HVAC systems for critical environments often involves distinct areas of room pressure control and directional airflow. An anteroom between a primary room and corridor ensures a safe airflow buffer zone between the controlled pressurized space and an unclean area. The two spaces are separated by a completely walled area with a door. However, in some applications an ante area without walls or a door can achieve the same effect.

Buildings Can Get Sick Too…

When you are not feeling well, you usually attribute the root cause to bacteria or an infectious person. Not many people realize the root cause of an illness can be improperly regulated HVAC systems in buildings. Indoor air quality is becoming a matter of concern. In fact, Americans on average spend 90% of their time indoors; less than an hour a day is spent outside. All of this time spent indoors in a poorly controlled environment can lead to sick building syndrome (SBS).  

Although there are a variety of methods for leak detection, the most common is pressure decay. Other methods can be time consuming and costly, whereas pressure decay leak detection is a simple test that's sensitive to very small leaks. This method is ideal for high-volume industries that require quick accurate tests within their facility. By pressurizing the unit under test (UUT) and then removing it from the pressure source, any detection of pressure loss is a result of a leak within the UUT. Before performing a pressure decay leak detection test, make sure your system is properly setup.  After the system is setup, follow the below steps to test the UUT with a differential pressure transducer.

The consequences of an unplanned leak in an air compressor may be higher than you think.  Air leakage can occur in any part of an air system, at any given time. Many users are blindsided by this issue. Air leaks are a significant source of wasted energy, often wasting 20-30% of a compressor’s output. Did you know that unmaintained plants waste at least 20% of air production capacity? In addition to wasting energy, undetected leaks can contribute to financial and operational losses.

In the test and measurement industry, manufacturers need to test the products they build. Pressure sensors are needed in test stands to measure pressure across various mediums, including air, fuel, coolant, gas. Testing can be expensive and having a reliable sensor eliminates costly downtime.

Although mold has many medical uses, it can be a huge problem for homes and buildings, especially if mold growth goes undetected. Mold spores spread easily and can grow anywhere, including carpet, clothing, food, paper as well as drywall, areas inside walls, around leaking or condensing pipes, and above ceiling tiles. Since mold cannot be completely eradicated and can be costly to fix, the best approach is to prevent mold before it becomes a problem. So how do you prevent mold growth? 

Protective Environment (PE) rooms are hospital rooms designed to protect a high-risk immunocompromised patient from human and environmental airborne pathogens. These are positive pressure rooms intended to keep patients safe during recovery from cancer treatment or stem-cell transplant.

Airborne Infection Isolation (AII) rooms, commonly called negative pressure rooms, are single-occupancy patient care spaces designed to isolate airborne pathogens to a safe containment area. AII rooms are a specialized application of a hospital’s HVAC system, where the airflow supplied into the room is balanced with exhaust airflow to create at least -0.01” WC negative differential pressure with respect to an adjacent space, usually the hallway or an anteroom. In simple terms, this provides a gentle flow of air under a closed doorway and into the room so that no airborne particulates escape into nursing staff or public areas. Exhaust from these rooms is not recirculated in the HVAC system. Instead, exhaust air typically moves in dedicated ductwork to ventilation stacks on the rooftop, where atmospheric air provides sufficient dilution to make the resulting air safe.

Whether you are an engineer or a consumer, many daily applications involve capacitance. Capacitance can be measured using a capacitor, however it is not as simple as that. There are three different methods in which the capacitor measures capacitance. 

We have gone over the best practices for selecting a unidirectional and a bidirectional differential pressure transducer based on usage and application. So why should you use a unidirectional differential pressure transducer over a bidirectional model for an isolation room? When requiring an increased accuracy reading for positive and negative pressure, it is best to use a unidirectional transducer. For positive pressurized rooms, you can place the low port on the reference area and the high port on the room of concern. For negative pressurized rooms, you place the low port on the negative pressure room of concern and the high port on the pressure reference area.