Wasserbauer protects workplaces and reduces energy consumption at the same time
Anyone who handles automated agricultural livestock feeding is familiar with Wasserbauer. The family business from Eggmair has become the market leader in this agricultural sector over the past 35 years. However, Wasserbauer's feeding systems are not only found along the Austrian Danube, Tuscany and in the French Champagne region: Wasserbauer delivers its automation solutions as far away as Japan. With its systems, Wasserbauer manages to ensure that the animals get exactly the amount of concentrated feed they need. In addition to the correct dosage, the systems also save time when feeding and thus ensure greater profits. Wasserbauer always takes a holistic approach. A performance claim that also applies to its own processes. That is why the agricultural machinery manufacturer invested in a state-of-the-art overall ventilation concept from Kappa in its welding hall in Eggmair. Welding fumes and fine dust are removed efficiently and economically.
Protecting the environment and people from emissions
Wasserbauer manufactures its own systems. This means high-precision welding work that generates a lot of welding fumes and fine dust due to the process. The protection of employees at the manual welding workplaces was a top priority of the project. In addition to protecting the employees, Wasserbauer also invested in optimal sustainability with the new air treatment system: the excellent separation performance filters fumes and fine dust emissions much better than prescribed and saves energy compared to conventional systems. Employees and the environment are protected. The welding fume emissions are separated even more efficiently and thus do not reach highly sensitive areas.
Better filter performance for less energy consumption
Kappa installed direct extraction on the welding workstations. Suction arms with a working radius of up to five metres are used for this purpose. These arms efficiently collect the welding fumes and gases directly at the welding workplace by means of extraction funnels. Extraction is only ever carried out on the suction arms that are currently being worked on. The intelligent automation independently regulates the necessary air volume up or down. This significantly reduces energy costs.
Residual emissions that cannot be captured directly and thus pollute the hall air as diffuse emissions are discharged via the hall extraction system. This prevents the hall from becoming increasingly smoky due to upstream and downstream work processes.
The welding fume emissions discharged via direct collection and hall extraction are highly filtered in the Kappa Mykron® fine dust filter. The Kappa Mykron® welding fume filter has been specially developed for the filtration of fumes and fine dust, such as those produced during welding. Compared to conventional welding fume filters, fumes and fine dust are filtered out much more efficiently. For fine dust down to a fineness of 0.4 µm, the improved filter performance is 30%. This makes it possible to feed the cleaned air back into the welding hall. This means that the room heat is not lost during the heating period. This saves heating energy. But the Kappa Mykron® is also an energy-saving filter in other respects. Compared to conventional filters, it saves up to 35% power due to its low system resistance and excellent dedusting during operation. The purified air is recirculated draught-free into the working areas in winter by means of Kappa DiffusorsTM. In summer mode, 100% of the purified exhaust air is discharged.
Thanks to the innovative air concept that has been implemented, the welders and employees are optimally protected in the hall. This also applies to the environment. And it saves Wasserbauer heating and electricity costs along the way in order to slightly offset rising energy prices and make a contribution to the environment at the same time.
The solution installed by Kappa manages to reduce both the emission load and the consumption of resources at the same time, as Managing Director Franz Wasserbauer also notes: "Wasserbauer is a company where the importance of nature is already evident from the product. That is why we are happy to integrate another building block into our production with our air concept, which not only counteracts rising energy prices, but also makes a contribution to environmental protection."
Steyr-Gleink,
