It is no secret that in the mining industry, there’s a large number of sources of dangerous noise — drills, shovels, crushers, mills, screens and lots of different processing equipment.
One source of dangerous noise that is common in the rebuild and maintenance workshops is air arc gouging, also called carbon arc cutting and in some parts of the world air grinding.
In mining, air arc gouging uses include repairing broken digger buckets, dump truck body’s, worn machine parts and general maintenance work.
Gouging can generate dangerous levels of noise of well over 120 decibels, which can cause immediate hearing impairment.
Air arc gouging is a procedure that uses an electrode-positive carbon arc to generate intense heat. An electric arc is between the tip of a carbon electrode and the workpiece. The metal becomes molten, and a high-velocity air jet streams down the electrode to blow it away, thus leaving a clean groove. It has an excellent metal removal rate, and control is manageable, so it is a handy tool. However, the high velocity of air becomes jet like in sound and is considered one of the noisiest pieces of equipment you can use.
The treatment to air arc gouging noise can quite tricky, and there are numerous ways to ensure Flexshield can make sure your rebuild workshop works unhindered but at safe noise levels.
3 Simple ways that are common for our customers included;
- Mobile Acoustic Partitions
- Mobile Acoustic Enclosures, Complete With Ventilation And Task Lighting, and
- Workshop Segregation Walls
Current air arc gouging projects we are working on include;
- Clients in Australia
- Clients in PNG
For more information on air arc gouging noise control solutions download our mining product catalogue or contact our expert team.
