Effects on the efficiency of activated carbon on exposure to welding fumes
- Southern Company Services, Inc., Birmingham, AL (United States)
It is the intention of this paper to document that certain types of welding fumes have little or no effect on the effectiveness of the carbon filter air filtration efficiency when directly exposed to a controlled amount of welding fumes for a short-term period. The welding processes studied were restricted to shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), flux cored arc welding (FCAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) and gas metal arc welding (GMAW) processes. Contrary to the SMAW and FCAW processes, the GTAW (or TIG) and the GMAW (or MIG) welding processes do not require the use of flux as part of the overall process. Credit was taken for these processes occurring in inert gas environments and producing minimal amount of smoke. It was concluded that a study involving the SMAW process would also envelop the effects of the TIG and MIG welding processes. The quantity of welding fumes generated during the arc welding process is a function of the particular process, the size and type of electrode, welding machine amperage, and operator proficiency. For this study, the amount of welding for specific testing was equated to the amount of welding normally conducted during plant unit outages. Different welding electrodes were also evaluated, and the subsequent testing was limited to an E7018 electrode which was judged to be representative of all carbon and stainless steel electrodes commonly used at the site. The effect of welding fumes on activated charcoal was tested using a filtration unit complete with prefilters, upstream and downstream high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, and a carbon adsorber section. The complete system was field tested in accordance with ANSI N510 standards prior to exposing the filters and the adsorber bed to welding fumes. The carbon samples were tested at an established laboratory using ASTM D3803-1989 standards.
- Research Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety, and Health, Washington, DC (United States). Office of Environmental Guidance; US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research; International Society of Nuclear Air Treatment Technologies, Inc., Batavia, OH (United States); Harvard Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Harvard Air Cleaning Lab.
- OSTI ID:
- 95685
- Report Number(s):
- NUREG/CP-0141; CONF-940738-; ON: TI95007828; TRN: 95:018848
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 23. DOE/NRC nuclear air cleaning and treatment conference, Buffalo, NY (United States), 25-28 Jul 1994; Other Information: PBD: Feb 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the 23rd DOE/NRC nuclear air cleaning conference; First, M.W. [ed.] [Harvard Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Harvard Air Cleaning Lab.]; PB: 820 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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