Many users are particularly concerned about the gas filling time when purchasing and using gas filling equipment to fill gas cylinders. They hope that the gas filling time is as short as possible, in other words, they hope that the gas filling speed is as fast as possible. Actually, this is a very dangerous misconception. The answer is: shorter gas filling time is not always better, and faster gas filling speed is not necessarily better. We will explain the reasons in detail below.
1. What Factors Affect Gas Filling Time?
(1) .The differences in physical properties of different gases will directly affect the filling speed. For example, when filling gas cylinders of the same capacity, it will take longer to fill liquefied gas than to fill permanent gas.
(2).Initial pressure of gas cylinder: The lower the remaining pressure in your gas cylinder, the more gas you need to fill it with, resulting in a longer filling time.
(3).Target filling pressure. The higher the filling pressure you set, the longer it takes to raise the gas from low pressure to high pressure, which means it takes longer to compress gas. For instance, filling a gas cylinder of the same capacity will take longer if the filling pressure is 20MPa than if the filling pressure is15MPa.
(5).Gas source pressure. A higher gas source pressure indicates a sufficient gas supply, resulting in a faster filling speed.
(4).Performance of gas filling equipment and filling pipelines. For example, the filling speed of a double-acting gas booster is almost twice that of a single-acting gas booster, so the filling time is shorter.
2. Why Control Gas Filling Time?
If gas filling speed is too fast, the high-pressure gas will flow rapidly through the pipelines, valves and the inner wall of the cylinder, causing a sudden rise in the temperature of these components. This will not only significantly shorten their service life but also pose a safety hazard. For every 10°C increase in temperature, the pressure inside the gas cylinder will rise by 3% to 5%, potentially leading to overpressure in the gas cylinder.
3.How to Safely Fill Gas into Cylinder
According to gas industry safety regulations, when filling permanent gases (such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon ) into gas cylinders, the filling time should not be less than 30 minutes, and the filling flow rate should not exceed 8m³/h. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control the filling rate during the gas filling process to ensure that the gas cylinder internal pressure and temperature rise slowly.
To facilitate users safely filling various gases, we offer a variety of gas filling equipment, such as gas filling pumps, manual and automatic gas filling machines. Please contact us to request brochures for more details.
