Shop Air Safety

General Composites Discussions Composites Talk
#1

Hey guys,

I am helping to set up a small composite fabrication shop and I was hoping to get some knowledge on how to make the air quality safe in the shop. This will be used by student clubs so the volume of parts will be very small, maybe one a month. However the last thing we want to do is expose people to harmful chemicals. We have personal safety down, half faced 3M respirators with particulate or vapor cartridges depending on what we’re doing, along with gloves, safety glasses, and hearing protection.

To get high quality air with a limited budget, what we’re thinking is to do our best to sand and cut outside but if we do it inside, for example on a drill press, we can have our shopvac clamped down next to it and on while we’re cutting. It sounds like this may not filter out some of the smaller particles and something like a JET dust collector could be more optimal, but we’ll have to wait till we get more money to get that. However the biggest thing I think we can do is to get a ventilation fan going along with an inlet air source we already have. I was looking at this ventilation fan along with 6" ducting. Additionally I was thinking we could get a big box fan to run while we’re working with resin.

Would that be sufficient protection for us? I think the personal protection will protect us while we’re working directly with things, but when nothing is going on in the shop I want to make sure the air quality is good and that fine particles won’t be allowed to layer things and be ingested by us.

Thanks!

#2

Sounds like your on the right track.

Be aware that when you cut/grind on carbon fiber that the dust particles it produces are electrical conductors and excessive dust around the shop can shot out electronics devices like computers, lights, and electric motors. Sounds like you have the right plan for dust control.

For resin fumes, if you’re doing a large part like an airplane or car, and you’re using some highly volatile resins, like poly/vinyl-esters, then fans blowing the fumes away from you are good. The fumes will go outside and may travel so be aware of your neighbors. If you’re working mostly with epoxies, VOCs are much less of a problem. You can also move toward infusion and thus reduce your VOCs from making parts to 0.

Like you mentioned, use PPE and keep awareness of the situation.