Manufacturing Challenge
One of the nation’s leading wind turbine blade manufactures approached American Vacuum about a central vacuum system for their blade production facility. American Vacuum was tasked with designing a turn-key plant-wide system capable of handling 40 handheld sanders at one time. As a result, American Vacuum designed one of our largest vacuum systems ever to meet their needs.
Wind Turbines are becoming a vital resource to our nation’s energy supply. As the industry has ramped up production over the years, several major blade manufacturing facilities have opened throughout the country. The blades are made of a fiberglass composite through a very labor intensive process that generates large amounts of fiberglass dust. That Fiberglass dust is a major health hazard that is not only an irritant, but can also cause respiratory issues. Therefore a vacuum system that connects to the dust generating sanders becomes a critical component in removing the dust and keeping the facility clean and dust free.
Custom equipment, controls, tubing, and other equipment was installed in a tight time window
- Run 24/7/365 with redundant critical systems in place
- Explosion venting to meet the latest OSHA and NFPA requirements
- Fire Suppression systems to mitigate possible fire hazards
- Discharge air from the blower returned to the building
- Durable, dependable, high flow machinery that has minimal maintenance downtime.
- Turn-Key installation
Innovative Custom-Designed Solution
In the world of 24/7/365, our customers expect our systems to run continuously and with minimal downtime. American Vacuum came up with a unique solution for our customers by building a redundant vacuum system. This redundant vacuum system design allowed the customer to have a backup system capable of being turned on with the flip of a switch. The custom controls built for this project allows the customer to rotate from blower to blower to keep both in operating condition. American Vacuum invested dozens of man hours into the design, selection and build phases of this project. It takes a unique skill set to build a system that is properly balanced, fine-tuned and to meet our specific customer needs.
Here are some of the design features
- (2) 250 HP Cast Iron multi-stage centrifugal vacuum producer
- A series of Fike explosion vents located under 106 bags within the baghouse
- On-Demand pulse jet cleaning system equipped with a photohelic pressure gauge
- Custom controls to run either/or blower which was also equipped with soft start features
- Custom Q –Box explosion suppression system located on different parts of the tube system. This includes quick acting cannons and valves.
- Turn-key installation
- Static conductive hose to prevent operators from static build-up
- Auto-lubing lever’s on the blower(s)
- Commissioning and training
- Custom designed tube system to accommodate sanders up to 700’ from the central vacuum system