WO2007138558A2

WO2007138558A2 - Ventilation system for spray booths, preparation areas and similar

Info

Publication number: WO2007138558A2
Application number: PCT/IB2007/052043
Authority: WO
Inventors: Massimo Greggio
Original assignee: Usi Italia S.R.L.
Priority date: 2006-06-01
Filing date: 2007-05-31
Publication date: 2007-12-06
Also published as: ITRM20060290A1; WO2007138558A3

Abstract

A ventilation system, particularly for paint drying booths (100), preparation areas and similar apparatuses, comprises ventilation means (2), means for inletting the air (1) and means for extracting the air (3) and it further comprises means (4) for detecting a process position (20), said inletting means (1) being apt to localize and/or reduce an air flow (51, 52, 53) depending upon the process position (20).

Description

VENTILATION SYSTEM FOR SPRAY BOOTHS, PREPARATION AREAS

AND SIMILAR

DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a ventilation system, particularly for spray booths, preparation areas and similar, and to the spray booth and to the preparation area including the same.

The preparation activities and subsequent painting of vehicles for repairing damages to the body generally comprise the phases of panel-beating (to reduce the dent extent), sanding of the damaged portion, application of the metallic putty with various methodologies according to need, drying of the puttied portion, subsequent smoothing and polishing, painting, drying and final polishing.

Usually the panel-beating, sanding, putty application, drying, smoothing and polishing operations are performed in dedicated stations, called preparation areas, and equipped with a grid whereon the vehicle is positioned and with a ventilating group which sends an air flow through a plenum to the process area and it extracts the contaminated air from the process residues by means of the underneath grid.

Painting and drying, instead, require a different equipped station, generally called paint drying booth. A typical paint drying booth is substantially constituted by a thermo-ventilating group and by a booth wherein the operator performs the manual painting of complete motor vehicles or portions thereof. Subsequently, still inside the same, the phases of flashing-off and drying the applied paint take place without the presence of the operator.

The paint drying booths, then, require a thermo-ventilating group having the function of providing the air volume, at a pre-established temperature, necessary to eliminate the cloud of residual paint during the paint application.

More precisely, the ventilation takes place according to a vertical direction, between the plenum and a grid-like floor in the stamping plane with underneath discharge filters allocated onto air ejection pit.

A certain amount of air at a pre-established temperature, which allows to provide that flow useful to implement the above-mentioned operations, substantially circulates, in a forced way, in the paint drying booths, and possibly also in the preparation areas.

Consequently, one of the main aspects in designing said apparatuses consists indeed in optimizing the ventilation and air-circulation system, obviously apart from the tuning of the control systems of the members adjusting the flow thereof. As far as the ventilation and air-circulation system is concerned, it is clear that the components must be sized so as to provide an air quantity sufficient to the requested purposes, whether they are the sanding, painting or drying phases, which require air capacities the ones different from the other ones. In order to avoid that the system works at the maximum deliverable power, and however to avoid making it work always at maximum capacity, systems are used for controlling fans, and the other components adjusting the air flow, which allow to vary the flow depending upon the requested operation. Such adjustment of the air flow is preferably performed by controlling inverter devices. These devices allow to reduce, at least partially, the consumption of the apparatuses, but not always they succeed in adapting to all possible requested solutions. In fact, the paint drying booths or the preparation areas generally have sizes so as to be able to house motor vehicles with different sizes or even single portions of the same. Consequently, upon diminishing the sizes of the product during the processing or painting phase, the effective air flow requested to the process reduces, and consequently, the air introduced into the booth is not exploited completely. This problem has been further emphasized by the introduction of recent regulations imposing, in each working situation, a high air flow, in particular for the health protection, as well as of the welfare in general, of the operator. In order to obtain what is required by the above-mentioned regulations, requiring that a determined, moreover quite high, air flow be always present in precise areas of the processing booth, it is necessary to utilize, on each occasion, high power engines, involving an increase both in the management costs and in the production costs of the booth or preparation area as a whole.

In conclusion, the traditional booths have ventilation and heating systems wholly lacking in use flexibility and therefore productivity, with high consumption of electric energy and fuels, excessive environmental impact and impact upon the operator's health which can sensibly be improved.

Therefore, the technical problem underlying the present invention is to provide a ventilation system for spray booths, preparation areas and similar apparatuses, which allows to remedy the drawbacks mentioned above with reference to the known art.

Such a problem is solved by the ventilation system for spray booths, preparation area and similar apparatus according to claim 1 and by the apparatus for processing and/or painting bodies of motor vehicles according to claim 10.

The present invention has some important advantages. The main advantages lie in the fact that the ventilation system according to the present invention allows maximum use flexibility, consumption reduction, reduction in the need of technological spaces, reduction in the general accessory plants, in the environmental impact, improving of the operator's health, the whole conjugated with a productivity improvement in general.

Other advantages, features and application modes of the present invention will be evident from the following detailed description of some embodiments, shown by way of example and not for limitative purpose. The figures of the enclosed drawings will be referred to, wherein: figure 1 is a schematic illustration, according to a perspective view, of a paint drying booth comprising a ventilation system according to the present invention; figures 2A and 2B are two schematic top illustrations of the booth of figure 1, during the use in different process positions; figure 3 is a schematic illustration, according to a side section, of the spray booth of figure 1; figure 4 is a partial perspective view, in section, of air inletting means, detail of figure 1, according to a first embodiment of the present invention; figure 5 is a view of the air inletting means, according to a second embodiment of the present invention; and figure 6 is a view of the air inletting means, according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter the use of ventilation system in paint drying booths will be referred to, however being within the comprehension of a person skilled in the art to transpose the above-mentioned teachings for other similar applications, such as for example the preparation areas for motor vehicles.

By firstly referring to figure 1, a spray booth 100 substantially comprises a thermo- ventilating group 2 or, more generally, means for ventilating the air and in case heating means, a working room 10, usually delimited and separated from the room of the motor body shop, means 1 for inletting the air into the working room 10, usually designated with the name plenum, air extraction means 3 and a centralized electric/electronic panel, not illustrated in figure. The thermo-ventilating group 2 has the function of providing the air volume, at pre- established temperature, necessary to eliminate the cloud of residual paint during the application of the same, implementing the flashing-off of the paint layers once laid off and, possibly, removing the dusts raising during the preparation of the body of a motor vehicle 6. The thermo-ventilating group then sends the generated air flow to the means 1 for inletting the air, which, as mentioned previously, is implemented, according to a preferred embodiment, by means of a plenum which has the task of distributing the air flow inside the working room 10. By referring to figure 3, the plenum is substantially implemented, analogously to the known art, by a chamber 13 for inletting an input air flow 51 and by a filtering surface 14, facing towards the inside of the working room 10. In particular, by now referring to figure 4, the filtering surface is implemented by means of a series of filtering panels 14, fastened to a grid-like structure 17. Each one of the above-mentioned filtering panels 14 is equipped with closing means 15, which alternatively can allow or inhibit the passage of an air flow through the above-mentioned filters.

According to a first embodiment, the closing means is implemented by means of rolling shutters 15, which are opened or closed according to a criterion which will be illustrated in detail hereinafter. By still referring to figure 4, the shutters are designated in the closed configuration, in other words in that configuration which inhibits the passage of the air flow through the filters 14, with the number 15, whereas in opened configuration with the number 16.

The input air flow 51, canalized into the inletting chamber 13, will have access to the working room 10 only through the opened shutters 16, and consequently, it will be canalized towards them.

In this way, respective opened sections 11, therefrom the flow 51 could exit towards the working room, and closed sections 12, therethrough the air passage does not take place, will result to be defined in the filtering surface. Therefore, by referring again to figure 1, by using one or more opened shutters 16 at a single wished point, it is possible to convey the input flow 51 towards a single opened position 11, thus by conveying and localizing the flow towards a wished position. This feature reveals to be particularly advantageous since in the different processing phases the use of a localized air flow 52 can be required, striking a determined process position 20 defined, for example, by the position wherein an operator 8 is applying a paint layer in a portion of the motor vehicle 6. Obviously, the flow reduction or localization can be requested also for other reasons, for example in case one works exclusively with a portion of the motor vehicle, such as bumpers or doors, or in the flashing-off phases, wherein an opened section 11 with smaller sizes with respect to the whole filtering surface can be requested. It is clear that, upon increasing the number of shutters and therefore of the panels implementing the filtering surface, it is possible to obtain a more precise localization of the flow. In each case, it must be understood that by using several panels with small sizes, the opened section 11 will be defined by a plurality of opened shutters 16 one adjacent to the other one. Such a configuration, for example, is represented in figure 4, wherein several opened shutters 16 forming the opened section 11 are present.

By then referring to the figures 2 A and 2B, the ventilation system according to the present invention further comprises means 4 for detecting the above-mentioned process position 20, in other words, according to a preferred embodiment, a plurality of sensors 4 is present, detecting the position of the operator 8, or, in case, of the used dispensing spray gun 9, both illustrated in figure 3.

Therefore, the ventilation system provides a control system allowing to localize and/or reduce the input air flow 51 depending upon the process position 20, by actuating the shutters 15, so as to define an opened section 11 at the process position 20. In this way, the area involved in the processing, therefore preferably the one adjacent to the position 20, will be subjected to a greater air flow, defined by the localized flow 52, as, being equal the capacity, the air will have to pass through a smaller section with respect to the overall one of the plenum 1. In fact, it has to be noted that in the traditional booths, the air crosses uniformly the filtering surface of the plenum and therefore, in the particular processings described before, a big part of the air flow is not really utilized.

By referring again to figures 2 A and 2B, the electronic control devices allow to modify the position of the opened section 11 , indeed by means of opening/closing the shutters 15, so that, during the shiftings of the operator inside the booth for the various processing phases, the opened section 11 is dynamically moved together with the process position 20. In order to obtain such a feature, it will be sufficient to motorize the shutters and to connect them to the above-mentioned control system, which will provide to actuate the motion thereof to implement the opening or the closing, depending upon the process position.

This feature allows then to have always the maximum obtainable localized flow at the requested position and, therefore, to have high flows even with reduced energy quantities and not much powerful plants, since there is no waste of air flow in the areas not involved by the processing. The detecting means, for example, can be implemented by means of a series of position sensors 4, placed on the perimeter of the working area, and at the height of the filtering surface. It is clear that other detecting systems may be provided, for example sensors determining the position of the dispensing spray gun 9, and sending it to the control system by means of different transmission systems.

Apart from the illustrated detecting systems, it is to be understood that other typologies of systems may be used, for example of the bidimensional type which, by exploiting the triangulation of the signals, detect the position of an operator wearing a transmitter, detected by a series of receiving antennas.

By referring to figures 5 and 6, it is to be understood that the closing means can be implemented according to additional embodiments.

In particular, figure 5 shows closing means implemented by means of wing shutters, instead of rolling shutters. As it can be seen from the detail 25, the wings can be motorized and therefore the opening/closing thereof can be controlled according to the same logic indicated above, by leaving opened the suitable section 21. A third embodiment is instead illustrated in figure 6. In this case the closing means is implemented by means of pairs of holed plates 35, coupled therebetween and mutually sliding according to the longitudinal direction thereof. The sliding of the plates causes the variation in the coupling of the holed portions and consequently of the overall opened section 31. Also such a system, as in the other cases, is always mounted in the plenum above the filters. Obviously the sliding of the holed plates can be motorized and therefore controlled as described above.

The use of a localized flow, and generally a bigger flow, first of all allows to better protect the operator's health since a localized air flow eliminates the over spray more efficiently.

Furthermore, in the automatic phases one is able to predetermine and thus to optimize the execution times.

Again, the flow localization, in general, allows to optimize the electrical consumption, connected to a dispensed smaller air volume, and energy consumption (diesel, methane gas, LPG, etc..) connected to the heating of the same.

In fact, the possibility of reducing the sizes of the opened section of the plenum reveals to be advantageous, since it allows to provide the requested air capacity during the processing with lower power dispensed by the thermo-ventilating group and therefore with considerable lower costs. Therefore, during the processing, it will be possible to set the thermo-ventilating group so that it acts at reduced capacity when only a local flow is requested and not a spread flow in the whole filtering surface. Such a feature can also be activated in an automatic way, for example at the end of a pre-set painting phase, by means of the control system provided by the booth.

An additional advantage allowed by the flow reduction, together with the programming of the processing phases, is to implement a decrease in the section of the plenum therefrom the air outlets during the flashing-off phase. Incidentally, the applicant has experimentally observed that a suitable decrease in the plenum section in such phase allows to lower the time necessary to the flashing-off period. By now referring to figure 3, the booth further comprises means 3 for extracting said air, which canalizes the localized flow 52 into an extraction channel 31, through a grid 32, extending above the same. In this, it is not necessary to utilize closing systems of the grid 32, since, generally, the speed of flow 52 allows an efficient localization without requiring the reduction of the extraction means.

In any case, it is evident that also the extraction means can comprise shutters or other analogous components to implement the reduction thereof analogously to the air inletting means.

The present invention has been described sofar by referring to preferred embodiments. It is to be meant that other embodiments belonging to the same inventive core may exist, all comprised within the protective scope of the herebelow reported claims.

Claims

1. Ventilation system, particularly for paint drying booths (100), preparation areas and similar apparatuses, comprising air ventilation means (2), air inletting means (1) and air extraction means (3), characterized in that it further comprises means (4) for detecting a process position (20), said air inletting means (1) being apt to localize and/or reduce an input flow (51), so as to implement a localized air flow (52), depending upon said process position (20).

2. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said inletting means (1) comprises an opened section (11), apt to allow the passage of said input flow (51) towards a working room (10), and a closed section (12) apt to prevent the passage of said input flow (51), said opened section (11) being apt to have a position and a variable size with respect to said inletting means (1), depending upon said process position (20).

3. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said opened section (11) is substantially placed above said process position (20).

4. Ventilation system according to one of the preceding claim, wherein said inletting means (1) comprises a chamber (13) for inletting said input flow (51) and a filtering surface (14) facing towards the inside of the working room (10).

5. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said filtering surface is implemented by means of a series of filtering panels (14), fastened by a grid-like structure (17).

6. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said filtering panels (14) are equipped with closing means (15), alternatively apt to allow or inhibit the passage of said input flow (51) through said filtering panels (14).

7. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said closing means is motorized and controlled depending upon a signal detected by said detection means (4), depending upon said process position (20).

8. Ventilation system according to the preceding claim, wherein said closing means is implemented by means of rolling shutters (15, 16) apt to be alternatively arranged in an opened or closed position, so as to allow or prevent the passage of said input flow.

9. Ventilation system according to claim 7, wherein said closing means is implemented by means of wing shutters (25) which can be rotated around a longitudinal axis thereof, apt to be alternatively arranged in opened or closed position, so as to allow or prevent the passage of said input flow.

10. Ventilation system according to claim 7, wherein said closing means is implemented by means of pairs of holed plates (35) coupled therebetween and mutually sliding along a longitudinal direction thereof, the mutual sliding determining a variation in the coupling of the holed portions, so as to allow or prevent the passage of said input flow.

11. Ventilation system according to one of the preceding claim, wherein said detection means comprises a plurality of position sensors (4), apt to detect the position of an operator (8).

12. Ventilation system according to one of the preceding claim, wherein said air ventilation means is a thermo-ventilating group (2) further apt to heat the air.

13. Apparatus (100) for processing and painting bodies of motor vehicles (6) comprising a ventilation system according to one of the claims 1 to 10.