Tag: Digital Sound Meter

What is Sound, and How Can You Reduce It?

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment

Many manufacturing plants have a strong focus on safety for their workers.  One major safety concern that is commonly overlooked is noise.   Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has a directive that defines the noise exposure over a time-weighted average; 29CFR 1910.95(a).   For an eight-hour day, the maximum noise level is 90 dBA.  The Center for Disease Control, CDC, reports that “approximately 18% of all manufacturing workers have hearing difficulty”1.

What is sound?  In the simplest of terms, a decibel is one-tenth of a bel.  Historically, bel was a unit created to honor Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone.  Like the frequency waves that travel through telephone wires, pressure waves travel through the air as sound.  This sound pressure is what our ears can detect as loudness.  EXAIR offers a Digital Sound Level Meter, model 9104, that is calibrated and can measure sound in decibels.  It is very important to know the sound level, as it can permanently damage your ears.

Here is a test for you.  If you go and stand in your plant, you can probably hear loud noises coming from your compressed air system.  EXAIR has an engineered product to solve most of them.  On the Hierarchy of Controls for NIOSH, Personal Protection Equipment, PPE, is the least effective.  A better control would be to isolate your operators from the hazard with an engineered product.  EXAIR can offer that solution for many of your blow-offs and pneumatic discharges to reduce noise levels.  This would include; but not be limited to; Super Air Nozzles, Safety Air Guns, Super Air Knives, and Super Air Amplifiers. 

Let’s look at a ¼” open copper tube.  It can create a sound level of over 100 dBA.  They are commonly used because they are readily available and inexpensive to make.  But they waste a lot of compressed air, as well as creating a hazard for your operators.  Just by adding a model 1100 Super Air Nozzle to the end of the copper tube, we can reduce the noise level to 74 dBA at 80 PSIG (5.5 bar).  Wow!  Not only will it remove the hazard, but it will reduce the amount of compressed air usage; saving you money.  Here is a quick video to show the importance of the EXAIR Super Air Nozzles.

At EXAIR, we have a statement, “Safety is everyone’s responsibility.”  EXAIR manufactures engineered products with high quality, safety, and efficiency in mind.  To keep your operators safe, EXAIR offers many different types of blow-off products that are designed to decrease noise to a safe level.  So, here’s to Alexander Graham Bell for creating the telephone, which you can use to contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.  We will be happy to help to reduce your sound levels. 

John Ball
Application Engineer


Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Note 1: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ohl/manufacturing.html

Sound Levels in Your Facility

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

One of the most common and dangerous hazards that occur within a manufacturing and production facility is the noise level within the plant. Noise is measured in units known as decibels. Decibels are a ratio of the power level of the sound compared to a logarithmic scale. If an employee is an exposed for too long to high levels of noise, they can begin to lose their hearing. That is where the OSHA 29 CFR 1910.95 regulation comes into play.

Hearing loss is the best known, but not the only, ill effect of harmful noise exposure. It can also cause physical and psychological stress, impair concentration, and contribute to workplace accidents or injuries.

This OSHA standard doesn’t just provide the protection against noise in the work place but monitoring as well. Companies shall provide at no cost audiometric tests for all employees to ensure that no damage is being to the hearing of all personnel. This program is to be repeated every six months and the results are to be made accessible to all personnel.                

Hearing is very important to our everyday lives and must be protected due to the fact that once it is damaged hearing loss cannot be lost be repaired. The OHSA 29 CFR 1910.95 is there to protect and monitor this dangerous hazard in the workplace so that all employees can go home safe and sound.

Here at EXAIR we design all of our products to safe and quite. Weather it is using one of our mufflers for vortex tubes or E-vac’s or one of our Super air nozzles we strive to meet and exceed the OSHA standard. One could also purchase EXAIR’s Digital Sound Level Meter which can give a accurate and responsive reading of how loud your compressed air sources are.

For more information on EXAIR’s Digital Sound Level Meter and any of EXAIR‘s Intelligent Compressed Air® Product lines, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or any of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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EXAIR Digital Sound Level Meter

Published on by EricKuhnash@EXAIR.comLeave a comment

EXAIRs’ easy to use Digital Sound Level Meter Model 9104 is ideal for identifying and measuring sound levels in manufacturing environments. The source of loud noises can be quickly identified which can then translate to taking some corrective action to lower the noise. Your current compressed air processes could be easily quieted by replacing your current end use product (nozzle, open pipe, open fitting, homemade air device) with an EXAIR engineered compressed air product. All of our blowoff products meet and/or exceed the OSHA Standard 29CFR-1910.95(a) noise exposure standard.

OSHA standards set the minimum level that employers must follow and maintain to ensure safety and hazard free environments. The EXAIR Model 9104 Digital Sound Level Meter will help efforts in reducing the risk of exposure to high noise levels and reducing the risk of hearing loss. The sound Meter will measure the decibel of sound and show the reading on a large LCD display. This unit is battery operated and comes with a certification of accuracy and calibration traceable to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

If you have questions about the Digital Sound Level Meter, or would like to talk about any of the quiet EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Eric Kuhnash
Application Engineer
E-mail: EricKuhnash@exair.com
Twitter: Twitter: @EXAIR_EK

EXAIR Digital Sound Level Meters Measure Noise Exposure Levels

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

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Digital Sound Meter

EXAIR offers the model 9104 Digital Sound Level Meter.  It is an easy to use instrument for measuring and monitoring the sound level pressures in and around equipment and other manufacturing processes.

Sound meters convert the movement of a thin membrane due to the pressure waves of sound into an electric signal that is processed and turned into a readable output, typically in dBA.  The dBA scale is the weighted scale that most closely matches the human ear in terms of the sounds and frequencies that can be detected.

Noise induced hearing loss can be a significant problem for many workers in manufacturing and mining. To protect workers in the workplace from suffering hearing loss OSHA has set limits to the time of exposure based on the sound level.  The information in the OSHA Standard 29 CFR – 1910.95(a) is summarized below.

OSHA Noise Level

The EXAIR Digital Sound Level Meter is an accurate and responsive instrument that measures the decibel level of the sound and displays the result on the large optionally back-lit LCD display. There is an “F/S” option to provide measurement in either ‘slow’ or ‘fast’ modes for stable or quickly varying noises. The ‘Max Hold’ function will capture and hold the maximum sound level, and update if a louder sound occurs.

Certification of accuracy and calibration traceable to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) is included.

If you have questions about the Digital Sound Level Meter, or would like to talk about any of the quiet EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Products, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer
Send me an email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS