New sound proofing enclosure for A1's baler
Project sound-proofing!
It sounds eerily quiet in the yard at the moment, despite being at our busiest! Last week a major project took place on our Lefort Amazone TS 1000 Baler. We had Acoustic Enclosures Ltd on site installing a huge steel, sound dampening enclosure around the baler to minimise the noise impact on the local community. The enclosure stands at 4400mm wide x 7145mm long x 5000mm high so is somewhat impressive in size. The structure is made of 3mm zinc coated steel and 100mm panels filled with Melinex lined mineral wool retained with galvanised perforated steel for ultimate sound minimisation – what a mouth full that is! Alongside the enclosure we have also had two new 8" reactive/absorption silencers installed to the unit to further minimise the exhaust noise from the machine. We really can’t believe the difference to the noise - we keep being asked why the baler isn’t running! Being a large scrap metal recycling plant, we aren’t ever going to be able to make ourselves silent, but we are keen to use the best practicable means to minimise noise as much as we can.
A new business stream for Accoustic Enclosure Limited.
Our director Sally Pike first came across Jim Shaw of Accoustic Enclosures Ltd back in the mid 00’s when we were looking to have noise attenutation measures installed on our previous baler. Working on scrap metal machinery wasn’t something they had done before – their usual projects involved creating enclosures for industrial air conditioning units and generators. Ever the engineer, Jim took on the challenge and the results were fantastic. Lefort (the baler manufacturer) now recommend Accoustic Enclosure Ltd to other metal recycling plants across the country who also need noise dampening assistance.
The technical details for the engineering fans amongst you.
For those of you that are interested in the finer details, below is a list of specifications we received from Acoustic Enclosures Ltd, we’ve also included the drawings of the enclosure as they look pretty epic!
• The enclosure is 4400mm wide x 7145mm long x 5000mm high and constructed around a 3mm formed frame.
• The panels for the enclosure are 2mm sheet folded into 100mm panels filled with glass tissue faced mineral wool retained with galvanised perforated steel.
• The enclosure is completely demountable.
• The enclosure is fitted with attenuators in front of the radiators and blast oil coolers. The attenuators are splitter silencers with 1200mm long splitters designed to meet 75dBA at 1m.
• Each inlet attenuator is fitted with a flexible connector to prevent recirculation.
• As the radiators and oil coolers are fitted with puller fans, and thus discharging air into the enclosure, it was necessary to fit outlet attenuators on the enclosure roof. Thus ensuring that heat within the enclosure would have an easy route to atmosphere whilst being driven by the pressure developed by the radiator and oil cooler fans.
• The external aperture of each inlet attenuator is fitted with large blade weather louvres.
• We have allowed for 3off personnel access doors into the enclosure for maintenance.
• In order to meet the performance of 75dB(A) at 1m it was necessary to remove the existing exhaust silencers and fit new 8" reactive/absorption silencers to each set. Due to heating concerns the exhaust silencers are mounted on the roof of the enclosure.
• All steel components will be primed and powder coated for an outside environment.
Want to find out more?
For more details on the work carried out, contact Claire at the A1 Group (claire@a1groupuk.com) or Jim of Accoustic Enclosures Ltd (jim@acousticenc.co.uk)
