Blast Rooms

Airblast manufacture blast rooms for many varied market sectors from Aerospace to Wind Power. Our comprehensive range of facilities and abrasive recovery machinery provide a solution for most blast room applications a, Bead Blasting, Grit Blasting, Shot Blasting, Steel Grit Blasting, Plasitc Media Stripping and Shot Peening.

Media Recovery Systems
The Airblast range of blast rooms incorporates a choice of two means of abrasive recovery. Most popular and by far the most automated system incorporated in our blast rooms being the Airflex sweep floor. But, where budget imposes constraints on the specification, a secondary option of suction recovery is also available.

Methods of Grit Recovery
Airflex Scraper Recovery Floor System typically suited to production blast rooms.

The floor for the automatic recovery of abrasive materials within blast rooms is made of modular corridors of six standard widths that can be produced to any length giving enormous flexibility to recover from virtually any floor area.

Each corridor has a series of flexible scraper blades set at pre set intervals. The blades rest against galvanised steel combs thus allowing it to push or pull the abrasive when the comb is behind the flexible scraper. On the alternate stroke the comb passes through the abrasive and the scraper blade passes over it. This back and forth motion, when repeated, causes the abrasive to be shunted along with each alternate stroke.

Eventually each individual accumulation of abrasive, in the linear corridors, is deposited into a transversal corridor running at right angles to the rest of the floor. This transversal corridor transfers the abrasive to the elevator and grit wash. This unit comprises of a primary vibrator sieve and air wash. In this section any remaining dust is taken to the dust collector, spent abrasive and large contaminants to a collection bin. This method of separating spent abrasive, in a way that they are not taken to the dust collector, means that the collector elements are prevented from suffering premature wear. The operator, who, by adjusting the power of the vacuum placed on the abrasive decides what minimum size of particle he wishes to remain in the system i.e. the higher the vacuum the larger the particle taken out of the abrasive.

Clean abrasive is now all that remains and is deposited in a silo equal in capacity to the volume of the blast machine or machines. Once all the abrasive in the blast machine has been delivered or at any other time the operator releases the dead mans handle the blast machine is automatically charged with fresh abrasive from the silo above.

Benefits our Blast Rooms Have Over Our Competition
Shallow floor: in the case of the vast majority of installations, an excavation of only 130mm is required. If your particular application will allow a step into your blast room of this dimension our system then can be set on your existing floor level thus eliminating the requirement for any civil work whatsoever. Even our elevators will work at ground level (eliminating the need of a pit).

Virtually silent working operation, the simplicity of our design and the lack of metal components used to pass abrasive through the room ensures low sound levels during recovery mode.

Economical: Low power consumption, our standard 1.1kW driving system is power enough to drive a corridor of 1.5 x 10m. Compared with most screw systems for recovery our system uses a fraction of the electricity during running time.

Vaculift Recovery System
The Vaculift, with its high recovery rate, is an ideal system for in-house blasting operations where the justification of a floor recovery system does not exist.
An air wash system separates dust and debris from the recovered abrasive. This allows valuable resources that would otherwise be thrown away, to be cleaned and returned to the blast machine or an optional storage hopper located above the machine. The lighter dust is transported to a dust collector, whilst the heavier contaminants are caught in a screen. A two-way air valve enables the operator to switch from blasting mode to recovery mode in seconds ensuring high productivity.

Media Recovery Rates
Aluminum Oxide Abrasive, recovery/recycling rate (depending on operating conditions) 23 tonnes per hour achieved with a 250cfm compressor and mid-range grit size. Cleaned abrasive is stored in the blast pot or a 300ltr (approx) hopper which dispenses grit via an iris valve on demand.
Metal Abrasive, recovery/ recycling rate (depending on operating conditions) 12 tonnes per hour achieved with a 250cfm compressor and mid-range grit size.

Methods of Booth Construction

Modular Blast Rooms
For a more bespoke facility design our Modular system offers a more flexible solution than our Containerised range. These rooms primarily made from a standard 2mm galvanised steel formed panel, complimented with heavy duty doors and door frames. They can be built up to almost any shape and size

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Containerised Blast Rooms Systems
When considering what mass produced enclosures can be adapted for the use of a blast room nothing quite compares with a standard shipping container. These obviously sturdy and watertight enclosures ideally lend themselves for blast room conversion. Besides standard shipping sizes ie. 10ft, 20ft and 40ft we are able to offer a enclosure built on the principles of a shipping container, but manufactured to any size. Where transportability, outdoor location or adherence to a tight budget are important these units are very popular. blast cabinets, blastrooms abrasive blast machinery airblast

Dust Extraction
Ventilation Systems Dust Extraction For Blast Rooms
Unlike many of our competitors, Airblast manufactures their own range of reverse pulse jet and shaker systems. All Airblast rooms are ventilated at a through rate of 50 ft/min this can be up to twice as much of the rate offered by many of our competitors. It is our experience that 50ft/min is the ideal solution when trying to suspend a particle of abrasive dust along the length of a blast room without grit carry over to the dust extraction. Generally for applications of up to 6000cfm, we would recommend shaker filter purely on the grounds of economics. Thereafter our reverse jet cartridge unit would be recommended. To download a movie showing how well an Airblast room is ventilated, please click the link below.

Our Fifty Foot per Minute Extraction Process For Blast Rooms
Powered by the specified fan the room can be efficiently extracted of airborne dust particles to leave the operator with minimal visual hindrance whilst blasting. This is achieved by locating the air inlets on the roof at the front of the blast room and extracting the air and dust at low level at the rear of the blast room. Spanning the inlets and extraction outlet across the width of the room helps achieve smooth laminar flow through the room. This helps eliminate the number of dead and turbulent areas in which dust may be held. Each set of air inlets is specifically designed for each facility. Introducing air into the room and extracting air at certain velocity (governed by physical dimensions of inlet and extraction openings) has proven to be the most effective at providing sufficient flow to carry dust particles whilst remaining laminar and uniform over the length of the room.

The Three-Stage Air Inlet System
Described is the route which air takes from outside to inside of the blast facility.

Stage 1: Filter material allows air to pass through but eliminates the ingress any foreign body into the blast room environment. This material also acts as a third stage physical barrier for the escape of grit and helps attenuates noise emitted from the blast process.
Stage 2: Fabricated box acts as a second stage main baffle stop for any ricocheted grit particles.
Stage 3: Fabricated cross mesh of flats. This serves two purposes. It is the first stage to help eliminate grit escape. Any ricocheting grit is likely to hit one of the main cross members of the mesh. This will dissipate it’s energy and due to the nature of gravity aided by the velocity of the incoming air should cause the particle to stay within the blast room. The second purpose of this mesh arrangement is to settle the flow by eliminating larger scale turbulence, or eddies. Large eddies outside the room will reduce in size as the air passes through the fabricated box section. Any eddies here will then be reduced further into smaller eddies which will enter the room and are much more likely to develop into to laminar flow which will continue through the blast room.

The Complete Turnkey Package
Airblast offers a new or refurb compressed air package enabling us to provide our customers with a complete solution to the blasting process problems.