Airpol Engineering - Dust and Fume Control engineers. Manufactures of reverse jet and reverse air flow filters, cyclones, fans and associated equipment. LEV readings undertaken and advice on exsisting equipment

Clarks International’s Dowlish Ford factory at Ilminster manufactures children’s and adult shoes from leather and plastics and the machinery used in their production produces a variety of fine dusts, and oily leather shavings.

Existing collection methods include the use of stand alone shaker type filters, positioned inside the factory, adjacent to the machines and which presented major limitations, including insufficient filtration cloth area, high filtration velocities, short filter bag life, dust loss, ineffective manual cleaning of the filter bags, high noise levels and small capacity dust storage bins resulting in manual emptying of the bins, which was labour intensive and caused a secondary dust problem when the bins were emptied into a larger skip for eventual loading into a compactor.

In addition, existing machine hooding was generally inadequate, resulting in emission of dust into the working environment.

Airpol undertook a detailed study of the existing machine hooding and proposed the implementation of a trial hood for the Torielli Trimming Machines, which trimmed off the excess material from the shoe soles, and which the existing hooding resulted in loss of particles and dust.

After a successful trial, the air volume was used as a basis for a new extraction system, which also served Morrisflex Sanding Machines and Double Ended Polishing/Buffing Machines, a total of 15-off machines with marginal capacity for 2-further lines.

Airpol offered one of their AirPol Type 96/145/1500 Cartridge Reverse Jet Filters, which utilises blasts of compressed air to clean banks of pleated filter cartridges, with a total effective filtration area of 518 m2. The filter was positioned outside the building and collected dust was discharged via a screw conveyor directly into the clients compactor, thus eliminating any secondary dust problems.

Due to the possible explosive nature of the dust, the filter was fitted with a ‘Fike’ explosion relief panel to safely vent the filter should an explosion occur.

The extracted air was provided by a Backward Inclined Centrifugal Fan sited on the clean side of the filter and vee-belt driven by a 75 kW motor. The fan was fitted with acoustic lagged case and acoustic outlet diffuser to limit fan noise to below 85 dBA @ 2 metres.

Airpol also supplied a suitable Control Panel containing the necessary starters and controls, etc. to operate the system in the correct start-up and shut-down sequences.

All machine hoods and ducting where supplied and erected by Airpol during normal working hours without any disruption to the normal working of the factory.

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