Extraction and purification of welding fumes and grinding dusts

For a holding company based in Parma (Italy), an international leader in the design of energy plants, GGE designed and built an extraction and purification system for welding fumes and grinding dust, with an air flow rate of 45,000 m³/h.

The customer company’s need was to extract pollutants released from welding and grinding operations conducted within the production facility. This is why we have designed a system equipped with 38 suction arms from the Elefantino series which, placed at the workstations, extract welding fumes and grinding dust directly at the source.
The extraction is generated by a 75 kW DT model centrifugal fan, installed outside the factory, which generates a negative pressure, drawing air into the arms and aeraulic ducts.

The air thus extracted, laden with smoke and dust, reaches two horizontal Finpol HZ cartridge filter units with a total filtering surface of 984 m². Air is filtered through 48 high-efficiency cartridges, which are also equipped with an automatic cleaning system using compressed air jets.
The filtered air flow is expelled into the atmosphere through a self-supporting chimney of Ø 1200 mm, with a circular silencer for noise attenuation.

Before reaching the two Finpol HZ filter units, the air passes through the Red Cyclone spark suppression system, designed to limit the number of glowing particles that can reach the fabric filters (for more information on how Red Cyclone works, read the full article here).

Finpol HZ filter units also have a fire-fighting flooding system to prevent a fire if very high internal temperatures are reached. The flooding of the units is managed by a temperature probe which, upon detecting a temperature above the maximum set limit, sends the signal to open the water conduit to the relevant solenoid valve.

The management of the extraction and purification system for welding fumes and grinding dust was projected in accordance with Industry 4.0. The start-up and shutdown of the system is managed by an electrical panel with inverter, PLC, HMI panel and software for the transmission of operating data and alarms according to the Modbus TCP/IP protocol.