Outside Air Intake Redesign

{ Company Solves Multiple Problems With New Louver System }

Client: Akron/Canton Area Manufacturer
Location: Northeast Ohio, Akron/Canton, Summit County

Problem

A client of ours has an air compressor room that requires a certain amount of air flow and must operate at a specified static pressure. Twenty or so years ago, when the building was built, they installed a louver system which pneumatically varied the louver openings to meet this required flow and pressure.

One unforeseen problem of the existing system was that on rainy days, water would get drawn into the louver openings and saturate the filters destroying them. Also, because of this water intrusion the louver's framework had corroded away. Rounding out the issues, the framework which held filters in place had been fabricated out of light weight metal and had become bent and damaged over the years causing misalignment of the filters.

Solution

The resulting solution that we developed was designed and fabricated around five parameters and successfully solved their problems:

1. The new louvers were configured in such a way as to assure that rain water was no longer able to enter the room -- even in a torrential downpour.
2. In the highly unlikely case that water did get past the new louver design, water resistant filters are now used in place of the old, water absorbent ones.
3. The new louver system had to be retrofitted to accommodate the existing pneumatic actuators which controlled the size of the louver openings per compressor requirements.
4. Extensive custom sheet metal work had to be done to rebuild the existing , water damaged louver framework and to transition the old opening dimensions to the new louver specifications.
5. New filter racks were designed and fabricated to prevent future damage and misalignment.

Equipment

• New Ruskin louvers
• New custom filter racks and louver framework fabricated in our sheet metal shop