Of the roughly 40 million Americans suffering from hearing loss, 10 million can be attributed to noise-induced hearing loss.
With extended exposure, decibel levels of 85 or more can lead to hearing loss. Exposure to impulse or continuous loud noise may cause a temporary hearing loss that disappears 16 to 48 hours later. Although the loss of hearing seems to disappear, research shows there may be residual long-term damage to your hearing.
Factory noise comes from many sources but one preventable source is an area often ignored – compressed air used for blow-off, cooling, cleaning, drying or part ejection. Despite technologies being available for many years to reduce the exhaust noise from these applications there is still a prevalence of “noisy” and unsafe open tubes and pipe being used.
The most effective noise reducing technology uses something called the coanda effect which minimizes energy loss to maintain the energy needed and reduce noise levels by as much as 10 dBA. They even reduce exhaust pressure to safety levels. Attempts made to replace compressed air blow off with blower supplied air reduce energy cost, but the resulting noise from blowers can cause more damage to hearing, offset energy cost saving due to increased maintenance and often not even work as well as a compressed air!!. This is the reason compressed air – “the air you breathe!” – is still so prevalent in use for blow off, cleaning, cooling and drying applications. Low cost technology is available to reduce noise reduced dramatically, with energy savings and enhanced safety.
Air Blade air knives from Nex Flow reduce noise levels dramatically in a blow off tunnel.
Imagine a more quiet factory environment!
