Report of Investigations 9197: Pallet Loading Dust Control System

Details

• Journal Article:
  Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, RI 9197
• Personal Author:
  Cecala, Andrew B. ; Covelli, Anthony
• Description:
  The Bureau of Mines has developed a pallet loading dust control system designed to lower the dust exposure of workers during the bag stacking process at mineral processing facilities. The system makes bag stacking much easier because the pallet height remains constant throughout the entire bag stacking cycle through the use of a hydraulic lift table. The system uses a push-pull ventilation technique to capture the dust generated during bag stacking. A low- volume, high-velocity blower system operating at approximately 150 cfm blows a stream of air over the top layer of bags on the pallet. The blower system is composed of two 3-in air jets (approximately 1,200-ft/min velocity) directed toward an exhaust system on the opposite side of the pallet. As these air jets travel across the pallet, they entrain the dust generated during bag stacking. The exhaust ventilation system pulls approximately 2,500 cfm of air and dust through the exhaust hood. This exhaust air can then be dumped into a baghouse ventilation system, or filtered before being discharged outside the mill. During a laboratory evaluation, a 70- pct dust reduction was recorded for the bag stacker. The first field evaluation was performed at a silica sand operation in which one worker performed the entire loading and bag stacking process. This worker's dust exposure was lowered 76 pct when using the new pallet loading system. The second field evaluation showed only moderate dust reduction, but this was mainly attributed to an overriding problem associated with background dust and the cleanliness of the bags. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Dust
  • Engineering
  • Minerals
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
  • Silicon Dioxide
  • Ventilation
• Keywords:
  • Mineral-processing; Mineral-dusts; Dust-control; Dust-control-equipment; Dusts; Engineering-controls; Control-technology; Ventilation; Ventilation-equipment; Ventilation-systems; Silica-dusts; Respirable-dust
• Source:
  Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, RI 9197, 1988 Jan; :1-12
• Series:
  NIOSH Numbered Publications ; Mining Publications
• Subseries:
  Report of Investigations
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRC - Pittsburgh Research Center
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  17 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10006202
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB90-270075
• CAS Registry Number:
  • Quartz (SiO2) (CAS RN 14808-60-7)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1988
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/10616/cdc_10616_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.63 MB]
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c515bb477b5454e8bf1bb6c59d5f2c1777b3a28a5d46b6f2175f1026f0f70c245fef28abf9ad35a9ba07b2d7fa8fc5b4bfb14e0d58d27cdb872eb1e74db7f3bb