In-Depth Survey Report: Evaluation of Local Exhaust Ventilation System for Advanced Flat Sorter Machine at United States Postal Service, Baltimore Processing and Distribution Center, Baltimore, Maryland [2002-07]

Details

• Personal Author:
  Beamer, Bryan R. ; Crouch, Keith G. ; Shulman, Stanley A. ; Topmiller, Jennifer L.
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Description:
  Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted evaluations of an exhaust ventilation system developed for the Automated Flat Sorting Machine (AFSM) 100. This system was installed by the machines manufacturer to reduce the potential for employee exposure to harmful substances that could be contained in mailpieces processed by the machine. This effort is in response to recent terrorist attacks that used the mail as a delivery system for anthrax. NIOSH was asked to assist the United States Postal Service (USPS) in evaluating controls for this and other mail processing machinery. Evaluations were based on a variety of tests including tracer gas experiments, air velocity measurements, smoke release observations, and particle count experiments. The experiments showed that, overall, there is good capture by the exhaust ventilation system. Tracer gas tests indicated that the capture was essentially 100% between the feed table and the bucket insertion point. At the bucket insertion point, the measured capture efficiency was approximately 81%. The exhaust ventilation system also exhibited good capture characteristics based on smoke release experiments and air velocity measurements. Particle count measurements were inconclusive. It was determined that this method does not produce repeatable enough results for use in this situation. Based on these results and others discussed in this report, the following recommendations are suggested: 1. Consider adding a ventilated partial enclosure at the point where the mailpieces enter the moving buckets to reduce the potential for contaminant release
  
  2. Seal cooling fan openings for fans that have been disconnected. These openings allow for the potential release of a substance that has been captured
  
  3. Consider more thoroughly evaluating the capabilities of the exhaust system with additional smoke and tracer gas testing, particularly after changes are made to the ventilation and filtration system. The tested system only had ventilation on one of the three feeders, and HEPA filters were not installed on the filtration unit.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Biological Warfare Agents Engineering Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Biological-warfare-agents Biological-weapons Control-technology Engineering-controls Equipment-design Equipment-reliability OSHA Region 3 Postal-employees
• Series:
  Engineering and Physical Hazards Survey Reports
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHEPHB27912a
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Name as Subject:
  United States. Postal Service
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Baltimore (MD) ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology ; EPHB - Engineering and Physical Hazards Branch
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-15
• Contributor:
  Maynard, Andrew ; Hoover, Mark
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035579
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2009-113257
• Citation:
  Cincinnati, OH: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, EPHB 279-12a, 2002 Jul ; :1-15
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2002
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  4311 - U.S. Postal Service - (SIC)
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9af33bfffc093e37e07188e60b4d57b6a12a89af866502f399efd54a07a3b106e2eeb96c17f2c34e3d318165f47f184ed64e007d16bfd87f982dda5c8929daf9
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/174915/cdc_174915_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 434.65 KB ]