Clean air in the welding shop

In 1925 the family enterprises was found in Kückelheim and developed in its 90 years history from a simple manufactory into a leading international manufacturer of conveyor chains, drive chains and sprockets. At the very location remains the heart of the Group today, the beautiful Sauerland. More than 1400 employees develop, produce and distribute on 70.000m² production area at sites in Europe, Asia, United States and Australia.

The challenge

An existing hall has been rebuilt into a new welding shop because of the strong growth of KettenWulf. Upon completion the hall should be finished with a well-designed extraction system not only according to health and environmental claims of the responsible company but also to the legal regulations. The materials need to be welded are composed of steel with radiated or grinded surfaces. They are worked on in MIG/MAG procedure.
Dimension of hall:
Length: 40m
Width: 20m
Height to pipeline of Push/Pull: 5m
Volume to crane way: 3500m³

The solution

Two extraction-systems are installed to capture and filtrate all particles during the welding process:
■ By means of capture facilities directly at the origin source
■ By means of Push/Pull-system for the post-smoke of hall air

The Push/Pull-System exhausts the welding fume particles from the air of the welding shop. Through this the MAC-values are reduced to a minimum. Two U-shape-systems are installed to ensure an optimal airflow. The extraction units are placed outside of the work hall’s backside getting the space requirement as low as possible. The capture of, with welding fume particles contaminated, exhaust air takes place with the help of ventilation grids (pull-pipe) which are situated in tubes of spiral ducts.

The exhaust air pipes are stationed below the hall roof, above the crane way. The recirculating air is ducted with ventilation grids for supplied air (push-tube) to get an optimized and focused airflow in direction of the exhaust air. Through this a controlled aerial current originates in the direction of the exhaust air. The grids are also placed in a conduit from miscellaneous folding pipe in the area below the crane road to lead the particle-afflicted exhaust air in the direction of exhaust air- grid.

On account of the hall size and the conduit lengths the parallel U-shape-systems must be included in the plan to achieve a successful and effective performance of the construction. The two parallel running conduits are supplied to a filter unit.

The formation of draft is avoided by positioning the ventilation grids below the work zone.
Volume flow: Determination of hall volume: 3.500m³/h x 8-fold air exchange/h = 28.000m³/h actual (no unimpeded air flow)

For the welding robots is besides two FlexHoods an additional extraction hood custom-made. This custom-made hood is 3m x 3m and is made of a steel plate with a suction conduit rail system. 

Main benefits

Testimonial

“I’m very impressed by the detected solution for our big robotic system. The extraction hood follows absolutely smooth-running during all work stages of our robot on this 13m long extraction rail system and the whole welding fume disappears. The installation and the mounting of the whole extraction system ran completely
trouble-free and absolutely clean. We would like to have more companies working that reliably and correctly.”

Quote by: Mr Baust, Foreman of the welding shop at Kettenwulf