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How an Ultrasonic Cleaner Works – part 1

April 24, 2012 by Frank Pedeflous

All types of industries require highly efficient and effective cleaning of components – which is what ultrasonic cleaning provides – during various stages in their manufacturing processes. Ultrasonic cleaners represent a revolutionary breakthrough in the cleaning process. Industrial ultrasonic cleaners are not exactly new, but how they work may be something of a mystery to perspective users. The process is well-understood and well developed, so here is a brief explanation to demystify their operation.

Jay Leno uses Omegasonics Ultrasonic Cleaners

Click on the above image to watch Jay Leno demo his Omegasonics ultrasonic cleaner in his "Green Garage" by cleaning a piston that had caked on carbon, as well as a part that was heavily rusted.

Ultrasonic cleaning uses high frequency sound waves to agitate a liquid. The agitated liquid acts on and dislodges contaminants adhering to objects being cleaned. Ultrasonic means above the range of human hearing. Think dog whistle, although in many applications, the frequencies are even way beyond what a dog (or a bat, which actually sends out ultrasonic waves as a form of sonar) would be able to hear.

Industrial ultrasonic cleaners consist of an ultrasound generator along with special transducers (instead of speakers) mounted on the bottom of a liquid-filled stainless steel bath. The generator and transducers create waves in the liquid, which cause it to alternately expand and contract. This expansion and contraction will occur between 25,000 to 130,000 times a second, depending on the application.

The energy transmitted to the liquid from the transducers causes bubbles to form when areas of the liquid vaporize, becoming a gas. During the expansion phase, the pressure from the surrounding liquid on these bubbles decreases, causing the bubbles to expand. This, in turn, causes the water vapor forming the bubble to rapidly condense leaving behind a vacuum-filled “cavity”.

During the compression phase, the pressure on the cavity from the surrounding liquid leads to a sudden collapse, or implosion, of the bubble. The liquid molecules collide, releasing a vast amount of impact energy. This energy rapidly increases the local temperature producing a high-energy liquid stream that collides with the surface of the object being cleaned. This collision agitates the contaminants adhering to the surface, effectively and efficiently dislodging them.

Ultrasonic cleaning can be thought of as “pressure washing” at the micron level (that’s 1 millionth of a meter, or one-thousandth of a millimeter!)

Next, we will look more closely at the liquid medium used by industrial ultrasonic cleaners, as well as other ways to optimize the process for particular applications.

If you have further questions about ultrasonic cleaners, feel free to contact one of our ultrasonic cleaning experts toll free at (888) 420-4445 or visit our website at http://www.Omegasonics.com?sm=bl.

Filed Under: Ultrasonic Education Tagged With: green garage, how an ultrasonic cleaner works, jay leno

Omegasonics Visits Jay Leno’s Garage

November 6, 2010 by Frank Pedeflous

Omegasonics machines are being used worldwide by a wide range of people and businesses looking to lower costs and improve the safety and effectiveness of industrial cleaning. Perhaps one of our most interesting clients has been Jay Leno of the Tonight Show on NBC.

A Visit to Jay Leno’s Garage

Several years ago, the mechanics at Jay’s garage, where Jay owns and restores over 200 vehicles and motorcyclesJay Leno Green Garage Ultrasonic Cleaning, came to us looking for a faster way to clean and refurbish their old car parts. Some of these parts are over 150 years old!

Soon enough we set Jay and his staff up with an Omegasonics Super Pro inside his garage. The Super Pro was the right choice for Jay because it gave him the versatility to clean almost any engine part. The Super Pro is an industrial sized machine designed to carry a heavy work load every day.

Previously, Jay’s staff was using toxic solvents and chemicals that produced skin irritations. The very next day after they received their Omegasonics machine, we had calls telling us how impressed they were. In just one day they had saved a ton of cleaning time.

I decided, along with our sales manager Joe Gilbert, to head down to Burbank, California to check out our Omegasonics machine in action. Jay now calls his garage his “Green Garage” in part to his Omegasonics Super Pro.

Our machine has been featured with Jay Leno in a past issue of Popular Mechanics, which can be found here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/4212345.

You also may have noticed the video on our website where Jay and I use his machine to clean one of his caked on carbon pistons along with other items.

Jay Leno may be one of the funniest comedians in the world, but he doesn’t joke around when it comes to cleaning his cars!

Filed Under: Case Studies, References Tagged With: green garage, jay leno, Omegasonics, Ultrasonic Cleaning

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