College Welding Bay Fume Extraction System

We were contacted by a college in the North West of England that needed an upgrade to its current fume extraction system. The educational welding bays at the college were regularly used by students, but the original system was old and was not adequately removing fumes from the working environment. The system consists of 10 welding bays with some fume extraction arms needing to be replaced and some additional arms installing.

We supplied, installed and commissioned a new dedicated welding fume extraction system to serve the 10 welding bays. The system was designed to comply with HSG 258- Controlling Airborne Contaminants at Work, we applied a capture velocity of 0.5m/s @ 200mm from source and a minimum duct velocity of 10m/s.

System details

System location: City of Liverpool College – Vauxhall Road Campus
Fabrication Department – G/20/1

Process: Mild Steel (MIG) Welding
Hazardous substance to be controlled: Welding Fume (mixture of metal oxide compounds & gases)
WEL mg/m3 8-hour TWA (Time Weighted Average). Welding fume is a complex mixture of of meal oxide compounds and gases. There is no specific workplace exposure limit (WEL) for welding fumes, however, some of the constituent WELS applied include:

Mixed substances and potentially carcinogenic as per latest HSE guidance:
Nickel (as N) 0.1mg/m3 TWA
Iron Oxide Fume (as FE)  5mg/m3 TWA
Manganese 0.2mg/m3 (as Mn) TWA

Upon completion of the installation the system was commissioned by one of our P601/P604 certified technicians and full report/documentation issued in line with HSG 258- Controlling airborne Contaminants at Work.

For your solution, contact our technical sales team on 0116 2448855 or email [email protected].

We supply LEV testing services and all other LEV services at many schools, colleges and universities around the UK, including the following: