Tag: Hearing Loss

Safe Trip

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

Just getting back in the swing of things after being on vacation last week. My family, along with my mother, went on a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise which included 3 days at sea and 3 days at different ports. Our port stops included the Bahamas, San Juan Puerto Rico and the island of St. Maarten. My wife and I have cruised several times and have already visited these islands, but with this cruise being our son’s and my mother’s first, we thought we would try to experience some different things.

Our last port was St. Maarten, where “we” (my wife and mother) planned our day of shopping and having an authentic lunch at a local restaurant. With the shopping portion of the day complete, we started asking locals for a good place to have lunch. We met a local who ran his own taxi company and recommended we have lunch at Maho Beach but it was going to be a 20 minute taxi ride. When we arrived, for some reason the area seemed somewhat familiar and then it hit me…. I’ve seen this place on TV! Their airport sits right on the edge of the island and arriving and departing planes basically fly right over your head while sitting at the restaurant/bar or swimming at the beach.

People line up along the road and fence line and wait for the next plane (the restaurant/bar has arrival and departure screens and will yell out when a large commercial jetliner is approaching), making it a very crowded area. Due to the potential jet blast coming from the engines there are safety signs posted that people ignore. I did ask one of the restaurant/bar managers if safety is such a concern, then why do they allow people to line up and he said “all they can do is warn people, if they want to subject themselves to injury, then that’s on them”. I don’t want to see anyone getting hurt, but I must admit, it is a little humorous to see people get blown all over the beach. Needless to say, we stood a good distance away.

St Maarten02_Maho Beach38Safety signmaho-beach-st-maarten

In all seriousness, safety should be a primary concern. Is your plant currently practicing safety when dealing with compressed air? Open pipes, tubes or drilled pipe can consume large amounts of compressed air, and exceed the pressure and noise level thresholds outlined by OSHA. And we are all aware that personnel don’t always abide by the safety rules – much like ignoring a safety sign.

At EXAIR, our customer’s safety is of utmost importance. All of our intelligent compressed air products meet or exceed the OSHA standard 1910.242(b) for safety.  This means that you can still operate the devices at 80 psig while not having to worry about an operator injuring themselves with the compressed air.  This is not just for one product line, but ALL of the compressed air products that we manufacture.

EXAIR products also meet or exceed the OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.95(a) for maximum allowable noise exposure levels.   The chart for allowable noise level exposure is below. Occupational hearing loss is a serious issue in manufacturing, in fact, it is the most commonly recorded illness is manufacturing. Engineering controls, like replacing open air lines with engineered air nozzles, are one of the top recommendations to solve the problem. Engineering controls can effectively eliminate the problem of people forgetting, refusing, or ignoring safety processes.

OSHA Noise Level

By implementing the EXAIR engineered solutions into your facility you can effectively lower the noise level cause by unsafe compressed air blow offs and possibly eliminate the need for hearing protection all together.   In my experience any time an operator doesn’t need to wear hearing protection or you can make their surrounding environment a little quieter, they tend to be a little happier which, always leads to better production. Again, many resources back this up, loud noise can also create physical and psychological stress.

These are just two of the standards that EXAIR will never take a vacation on.   Every product that EXAIR designs must be safe for operator operations, whether that be through pressure output or through the noise level it creates.

Contact one of our applications engineers to see how we may be able to improve similar safety concerns at your facility.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

Safety, Efficiency, and Production Improvements

Published on by Dave WoernerLeave a comment

Last week, I received an email from a satisfied customer, after he had already purchased our product.  Come to find out this customer had not spoken to an application engineer during the planning stage to make their purchase. With our excellent resources listed at EXAIR.com, the customer was able to fulfill his application without even speaking to us. After his initial email of thanks, he also shared with me some details of his application that I want to share with you today.

The customer works as a machinist at a large aircraft part manufacturer. The parts require a very tight tolerance. A sample of each part needed to be gauged and measured in an automatic thread gauging machine or a coordinate-measuring machine (CMM). Their machining process required a water based flood coolant, so each part would be coated in water based coolant and chips, which needed to be remove before gauging. Before visiting EXAIR’s site, the company used a variety of homemade and commercial blow offs, as safety air gun tips. Here is a photo of (20) of the (25) nozzles the customer was using.

Aircraft manufacturer's obsolete nozzles

As you can see, the nozzles vary in design purpose, flow and safety. Most of the nozzles feature a cross drilled hole or a secondary escape path, but not all of the nozzles do. Any nozzle without a secondary relief port violates OSHA standard CFR 1910.242(b), so replacing some of the nozzles increased the safety in the plant. Secondly, these nozzles are wasteful in their use of compressed air because some were designed as liquid nozzles and have large exit holes. A hole that is 1/8″ in diameter at the nozzle outlet can consume up to 21.4 SCFM of compressed air at 80 PSIG. For comparison, the model 1103 Mini Super Air Nozzle with a 1/8″ NPT inlet will flow 10 SCFM at 80 PSIG, which would be a 53% compressed air savings. In 24 running hours, the 1103 nozzle will save 16,416 Standard Cubic Feet, which the plant spent $4.10 for a standard industrial compressor to produce (The standard for compressed air cost is $0.25 per 1,000 SCF). Replacing just one 1/8″ drilled hole with 1103 Mini Super Air Nozzle saves the aircraft company $1,026 over 250 working days running 24 hours a day.

Neither of these were the real reason that the customer emailed to thank us though. He was actually an office employee just entering the work force.  Starting in June until after the company finally acquiesced to his request to buy a better, quieter nozzle near the end of July, he had left work needing an aspirin to relieve the headache he acquired due to the noise from these other nozzles. The nozzles the machining center had been using would create noise levels between 88-100 dBA at 80 PSIG of inlet pressure. For reference OSHA mandates that employees are required to wear hearing protection, if they are exposed to noise levels over 90 dBA over an 8 hour work day.  The employees doing the machining wear hearing protection, but the employees in the office were still exposed and affected by the noise level.  This is just one anecdotal example, but everyday more and more research shows that noise exposure has a negative effect on our health and productivity in the workplace.  If you are interested in more information here are some links to a number of studies/research – please read this, here or this.

Anyway, that’s enough of my soapbox. The company purchased 25 of EXAIR’s 1103 Mini Super Air Nozzles and utilizing the same guns they were currently using saw between a 10-15 dBA decrease in noise levels near the work stations. Here is a photo of one of their setups with the model 1103 installed on one of their current air guns.

Nozzle Replacement
The 1103 Super Air Nozzle is an engineered solution to replace a plethora of commercial nozzles. It was a simple and cost effective retrofit which increased the comfort of employees.

 

We know that every time they squeeze that air gun trigger they will be using less compressed air than before, and we know they are now in compliance with OSHA. But the best benefit for EXAIR is we know that the engineer took the time to email us to thank us for taking away his headache everyday.  That’s enough for me.

Dave Woerner
Application Engineer
DaveWoerner@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_DW

 

 

EXAIR Super Air Knife: Reduce Cost, Reduce Noise, Increase Safety

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

This question from end user’s comes up again and again:

“I know EXAIR makes Air Knives. Do you have one for this application?”

We can answer, almost unequivocally, with a resounding “YES!” Whether we can meet the needs of the application with a stock product, or through manufacturing a specially made unit, we make every effort to provide the needed solution.

Super Air Knife Replaces Drilled Pipe Blow Off

Case in point, in the application above, a specific length Air Knife was desired to remove debris from material as it goes into a processing chamber. The current setup (outlined in red)  uses drilled holes in a section of pipe which are costly, loud, and unsafe.

How costly, you ask? Our customer stated this knife was 100″ long with 3/32″ holes on 2″ centers (50 holes). EXAIR test results on 3/32″ drilled holes confirm 15 SCFM per hole at 80 PSIG inlet pressure. The customer also estimates this drilled pipe operates for a total of 1 hour every day, 250 days per year. Using $0.25 per 1000 SCFM we can calculate the following:

  • 50 holes x 15 SCFM = 750 SCFM at 80 PSIG
  • 750 SCFM x 60 minutes per day = 45,000 SCF per day
  • 45,000 SCF x 250 days = 11,250,000 SCF per year
  • 11,250,000/1000 x $0.25 = $2812.50 cost per year

How loud, you ask? Our customer confirmed all personnel near the application were require to wear ear protection at all times. Though they were unable to provide a decibel (dBA) level, the need for hearing protection would indicate this pipe was operating in excess of 100 dBA.

How unsafe, you ask? Air can be dangerous when the outlet pressure of a hole is greater than 30 PSIG. In the event any of the holes were blocked by a hand or other body part, air may enter the bloodstream through the skin, resulting in serious injury. All of the Air Knives manufactured by EXAIR have been engineered for safety. They are all safe to be supplied with higher pressure compressed air and meet OSHA standard CFR 1910.242(b). Drilled holes in a pipe DO NOT MEET this OSHA standard.

Initially, discussions with this end user focused on a custom length, custom built Super Air Knife. Given the dimensions of the processing environment, we determined the desired length and the end user was thrilled we could not only make to their specifications, but offer 3 day delivery as well.

As the discussion carried on, we realized that the special length Super Air Knife, while applicable, was not a critical requirement for the application. With this new consideration, a stock length knife was chosen, and just like any stock EXAIR product, we had it on the shelf, ready to ship the same day.

This application highlights several benefits of the EXAIR Super Air Knife solution – compressed air savings, noise reduction, providing safety, and quick delivery. EXAIR Super Air Knives solve multiple problems for end users and OEM’s in a variety of applications.

Compressed Air Savings: 

  • 96″ knife with 2.9 SCFM per inch consumption at 80 PSIG = 278.4 SCFM at 80 PSIG
  • 278.4 x 60 minutes per day = 16,704 SCF per day
  • 16,704 SCF x 250 days = 4,176,000 SCF per year
  • 4,176,000/1000 x $0.25 = $1044 cost per year
  • $2812.50 (drilled pipe annual air cost) – $1044 (EXAIR 96″ Super Air Knife air cost) = $1768.50 SAVINGS the first year!

Noise levels reduced to under 80 dBA. 

SAFETY: EXAIR Super Air Knives meet the OSHA standard CFR 1910.242(b).

Switching this customer over to an engineered solution provided a win in these three important areas of any operation. If assistance is needed determining which Super Air Knife best suits your application, contact an Application Engineer.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
LeeEvans@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_LE

Can Fish Hear & Other Noise Exposure Facts?

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When I was visiting a supplier in Japan, our host was extremely proud of their koi pond and wanted to demonstrate something. He took us to the pond’s edge and clapped his hands. From the murky depths of the pond emerged huge koi breaking the surface with open mouths. As their reward, he tossed them a handful of fish food.

While everyone else was enamored with his ability to have trained the fish, I was awestruck with the fact that they could hear the sound of clapping deep down into the pond. No wonder dad kept telling me to be quiet or you will scare the fish away.

According to the National Wildlife Federation fish don’t have ears that we can see, but they do have ear parts inside their heads. They pick up sounds in the water through the lateral lines that runs down each side of its body and transmitted to their internal ear.

While human auditory abilities may not be as sensitive as the rest of the animal kingdom, the inner workings of our ears are very sensitive easily damaged. Listening to loud noise for long periods of time can damage the hair cells in the inner ear. Noise-induced hearing loss usually develops gradually and painlessly. We live in a noisy world and hearing loss among Americans is significant. According to the Center for Hearing and Communications, approximately 12% of the U.S. population or 38 million Americans have a significant hearing loss.

For 30 years EXAIR has been designing and manufacturing compressed Super Air Nozzles, jets, knives, and amplifiers that significantly reduce sound levels and compressed air costs. Protect your hearing as well as your employee’s and save money by contacting our application engineers and they will show you how.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
Phone (513) 671-3322
Fax   (513) 671-3363
Web: www.exair.com
Twitter: EXAIR_JP

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