REINFORCED EXHAUST SYSTEM: LOCAL VENTILATION WITH ENHANCED CAPTURE RANGE

摘要

Local ventilation equipment can help to improve the air quality in the workers breathing zone, but existing devices have a limited capture distance. Therefore, installed systems are often not correctly used by workers. The "Reinforced Exhaust System" is a new local ventilation principle for industrial ventilation with improved efficiency for capturing contaminants released by working processes like welding. The system was first proposed in 1965 by C.P. Aaberg in Denmark. The potential of the principle was shown by different investigations (Saunders et. al., 1993 or Hunt et. al., 1993); nevertheless, it did not find applications in industrial premises until now. The paper discusses the optimisation process of the device using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In particular, a computational assessment of different local ventilation devices is described and the underlying studies are referenced. Finally, the transformation of the results into a working prototype for a demonstration workplace, which was installed in a Swiss manufacturing plant is described.