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problem solvers Problem Solvers 6 IEN / OCTOBER '16 www.ien.com HVAC Noise Inspires Industry-First Fabric Duct Attenuator M anufacturer of pressure washers, air compressors and many other industrial products – Mi-T-M Corp. – inspired the world's fi rst fabric ductwork sound atten- uator when its new 68,000-square-foot offi ce building experienced noise from uator when its new 68,000-square-foot offi ce building experienced noise from mechanical air handling units (AHU) supplying the facility's HVAC. Despite its state-of- the-art concrete and tilt-up wall construction, Mi-T-M Corp.'s headquarters still suffered the-art concrete and tilt-up wall construction, Mi-T-M Corp.'s headquarters still suffered interior ambient HVAC mechanical noise issues. Mi-T-M CEO A.J. Spiegel's HVAC ductwork material preference for years has been fabric duct, because of its aesthetics and its installation labor savings versus metal duct. Initially, Michael Wuertzer, Mi-T-M's plant maintenance supervisor, attempted to attenuate mechanical noise by lowering AHU airfl ow by 60 percent with the AHUs' built-in vari- able frequency drives. When noise was not reduced to acceptable levels, Wuertzer and managing director of operations Thomas Allendorf requested fabric duct manufacturer, DuctSox Corp. of Peosta, IA, develop the world's fi rst sound attenuator for fabric air dispersion systems. The building is designed with 1,388-linear feet of DuctSox's premium grade Sedo- na-XM fabric duct, which includes a built-in anti-microbial agent to prevent biological growth. Although the majority of the 20 duct runs are 22-inch-diameter, some runs are 18 and 24-inch-diameter duct along with an occasional elbow or tee for air dis- tribution coverage purposes. The silver fabric duct is suspended with DuctSox's pat- ented SkeleCore Fabric Tensioning System (FTS), an aluminum metal hoop and cen- ter spacer tubing system. The system allows installing contractors to quickly and easily fi eld-adjust the textile tautness and roundness with just a turn of a wrench for wrinkle-free aesthetics. True to Spiegel's impetus for using fabric duct on the project, 60 to 65-percent of the ductwork installation costs were saved versus using spiral-round metal duct. The mechanical noise needing abatement was generated by a combination of airfl ow noise com- mon in all types of ductwork and most of the building's 14 AHUs ranging from 2,625 to 4,400- cfms. The AHUs are supplied by one 220-ton chiller and four 550,000-BTU, 94-percent-efficient boilers. Other me- chanical equipment included four two-ton mini-split systems to redundantly cool com- puter and other smaller electronics rooms. DuctSox's R&D; department also developed a fabric sound attenuator system, the Si- lencer, that was successfully tested by Intertek Labs under ASTM-E477-2013 criteria, a standard laboratory measurement of acoustical and airfl ow performance of duct liner materials and pre-fabricated silencers. Lab fi ndings revealed the fabric attenuator with a center bullet sound absorber, which attaches to the in-duct tensioning system's spacer tubing, was equally effective in dynamic insertion loss (db) as metal sound attenuators up tubing, was equally effective in dynamic insertion loss (db) as metal sound attenuators up to 500-Hz and more effective than metal in the 500 to 8,000-Hz range. to 500-Hz and more effective than metal in the 500 to 8,000-Hz range. Students Help Solve Assembly Delays with Automation C opley High School in Copley, OH, is a general education school with about 1135 students across grades 9 to 12. Recently, students participating in the Copley engi- neering program set out to compete in the SourceAmerica Design Challenge, a na- tional engineering competition to design workplace technology for people with disabilities. SourceAmerica assigned the group to work with Weaver Industries ProPak of Cuyahoga Falls, OH, a contract manufacturer, and a nonprofi t organization. Weaver is part of the AbilityOne Program, the largest source of employment for people with signifi cant disabil- ities in the United States. Like any other manufacturing business, Weaver has to keep up with customer demand, and it needed to improve effi ciencies associated with the assembly and packaging of a and it needed to improve effi ciencies associated with the assembly and packaging of a nozzle kit for its customer, Fomo Products, a maker of foam insulation and sealant mate- rials and application equipment. AutomationDirect, an online distributor of industrial controls and components, provided most of the required automation equipment. The challenge was clear: the manual assembly line would have to be automated so any workers at the nonprofi t, no matter the nature of their dis- ability, could assemble and package products. The Copley High School En- gineering Team's fi rst Fomo nozzle production and packag- ing system was designed for a single specifi c nozzle model. It included a complete solution to assemble and transport nozzle assemblies automatically, and then package them in kits with gel packets and instructions. Once the fi rst sys- tem was built and installed, Weaver realized a signifi cant production increase over its existing manual operation. A second system was designed to accommodate a new Fomo nozzle the company had scheduled for roll- out in December, 2015. However, due to low produc- tion demand, Fomo pulled the contract. Ultimately this setback proved to be a benefi t be- cause it created an unexpected opportunity. The Cop- ley team shifted gears and redesigned the new system with changeable tooling and programming to handle every nozzle in Fomo's catalog. This new system re- placed the one Copley had built last year as its fi rst project for Weaver, adding increased versatility and faster production with a smaller footprint. The new design enables any worker at Weaver to op- erate the system, including individuals who have only one hand, or who have counting or memory disabilities. The design also helps ensure fi nal product accuracy with all parts in correct quantities in every package. At last check, Weaver Industries has used it to assemble and package more than one million nozzles.