Clean and safe: Flexible dust extraction in CFP processing

Customer:	Schunk
Extracted material:	carbon-fibre dusts (CFK)
Industry:	General industry
Vacuum cleaner:	Central extraction system (DustEx)

Schunk Kohlenstofftechnik GmbH produces composite components made of carbon fibre (CFP) and other products in Heuchelheim. The majority of these are used in machine and system construction and in the automotive industry.

Problem

Since dust is produced during many processing steps, the company needed to plan an extraction system for its new production warehouse. They had two concepts to choose from: a central extraction system, or a system that used multiple decentralised (mobile) vacuum cleaners.

Solution

The managers at Schunk decided on a central extraction system offering 2 x 11 kW power, on the advice of Ruwac's experts. It is connected to a large number of extraction points via pipelines. Users can easily connect one of the suction hoses as needed to extract dust. In addition, direction extraction units are also installed on some processing machines to collect dust directly at the source of production.

The system is designed to conform with dust explosion protection requirements. Since the central components are housed on a mezzanine floor, they don't take up any space in production.

The advantages of the central extraction system include the “clean” layout, good flexibility and easy handling. Personnel can immediately vacuum large or small quantities of dust without any extra work. Since the extracted material is collected at a central point, disposal is simple.