Making a ventilation plan for welding shop

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I am designing a ventilation system for a welding shop. I wanted to know how should I start my project, like what aspects should I be looking for?Help will be really appreciated.Thank you.
Reply:It depends on the size you your shop and the number of welders operating.  Lincoln Electric has some guidelines.  Look at the bottom for the standard numbers.http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us...ases-faqs.aspx  I know Lincoln will actually help companies design ventilation systems for commercial operations.  Of course with the expectation that you will puchase some of their equipment.
Reply:Interesting topic. I have a shop of 10 employees to comply with standards.You might want to google MFHAP. It the the EPA subset of the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants. Enforcement went into effect July 2011. It basically says that no visible smoke can exit your facility. So the "General Dilution Method of Air Purification" will not comply anymore if visible smoke is reported, and you will be fined. A full article was posted in this months AWS journal. Still in question is the exemption for small bussiness or number of employees.Also worth considering is OSHA Hexavalent Chromium Exposure Standard. Google it up and read the standard. Any exposure to welding or metal processing fumes that could possible emit hex chromium particles in excess of 50 ppm is a violation. The problem is that it is near impossible to measure with out an expensive monitoring routine. Again fines ensue.So in my shop I have adopted a rule that any stainless steel welding is to be done with P100 respirators on personnel, doors will be open for general dilution, and when ever any smoke is produced, a source capture portable fume extractor/purifier is in use so that no smoke exits the premises. All this is in our employee handbook and will be enforced.Weld like a "WELDOR", not a wel-"DERR" MillerDynasty700DX,Dynasty350DX4ea,Dynasty200DX,Li  ncolnSW200-2ea.,MillerMatic350P,MillerMatic200w/spoolgun,MKCobraMig260,Lincoln SP-170T,PlasmaCam/Hypertherm1250,HFProTig2ea,MigMax1ea.
Reply:FANS
Reply:the first and foremost piece of information for ventilating an area is the volume of air to be moved. that is if you are talking about ventilating a room.   if you are going to be moving air through updraft of downdraft tables then you need to know how many pickups,  so that you can determine the size of your method of exhaust, reducers, blast gates, trunk lines, clean outs and so on.   there's plenty of info out there.  see if dayton or one of the other mfg's of dust collection equipment got anything.   ventilating a given amount of cubic feet and exhausting through pickup points are two different animals.   back when there were foundries in the us we'd install baghouses that would put a building under so much negative pressure it was hard to open a door.  you probably don't need that that much.
Reply:XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxLast edited by Fat Bastard; 12-16-2011 at 03:19 PM.