Industrial Ventilation systems- part2

What is the purpose of a ventilation system?

There are four purposes of ventilation:

1. Provide a continuous supply of fresh outside air.
2. Maintain temperature and humidity at comfortable levels.
3. Reduce potential fire or explosion hazards.
4. Remove or dilute airborne contaminants.

Why have an industrial ventilation system?

Ventilation is considered an "engineering control" to remove or control contaminants released in indoor work environments. It is one of the preferred ways to control employee exposure to air contaminants.

Other ways to control contaminants include:

* eliminate the use of the hazardous chemical or material,
* substitute with less toxic chemicals,
* process change, or
* work practice change.

What are the parts of an industrial ventilation system?

Systems are composed of many parts including:

* an "air intake" area such as a hood or an enclosure,
* ducts to move air from one area to another,
* air cleaning device(s), and
* fan(s) to bring in outside air and exhaust the indoor contaminated air.

Each of these parts are discussed in this series of documents.
What are the basic types of ventilation systems?

There are two types of mechanical ventilation systems used in industrial settings:

Dilution (or general) ventilation reduces the concentration of the contaminant by mixing the contaminated air with clean, uncontaminated air.

Local exhaust ventilation captures contaminates at or very near the source and exhausts them outside.