Our Work

An industrial client had a safety concern where the exhaust system on their plastic film extrusion equipment was insufficient to draw away noxious fumes, especially during equipment cleaning. During normal operation, fumes were ever present at a level that was tolerable to the employees.  However, during equipment cleaning, the fumes were bad enough that the entire machine had to be entombed in an air tight chamber so that other work could be undertaken.  The process of covering the machine consumed significant resources and took an entire shift to complete.

Induspec focused on three areas of the exhaust system.  First, a detailed performance review of the vacuum fan was undertaken.  Next, the exhaust hood was assessed, and finally, the exhaust ducting was checked.

Induspec identified that the exhaust ducting had massive air leaks such that a significant amount of  system capacity was defeated by leaks, the fume hood was not effective, and the fan was undersized. Induspec worked with the customer’s maintenance staff to seal the duct leaks, specified and sourced correct sheaves, belts, motor, and motor mounting hardware for the existing fan, and developed a new fume hood design that was both effective at removing noxious fumes and easy to install and remove.

Induspec worked with a local fabricator to finalize field dimensions and install the new fume hood.  The system is working extremely well and the customer has requested Induspec to perform a similar transformation on another extruder.