Abstract
In the recent years, health effect of dimethylformamide(DMF) has been one of critical industrial hygiene issues. There might be many factors to increase the exposure level of DMF. Among those factors, industrial ventilation would be one of the main factors. In this study, industrial ventilation systems of printing processes in synthetic leather factories were thoroughly surveyed and the improved ventilation systems were proposed. 7 synthetic leather factories were selected for this study. After the ventilation systems were visually inspected, each component of the system was tested by using the appropriate instruments. Hood face velocities, fan exhaust flow rates, fan static pressures, fan rotation rates, etc were measured. In addition, flow visualization techniques were used to observe flow patten around hoods and inside the factory buildings. After gathering all qualitative and quantitative information, the test results were analysed to see if any improvement might be necessary. For the system to be improved, the re-design plans were made by using computational fluid dynamics softwares. The softwares used in this study were AIRPAK and STAR-CD. The effectiveness of the several improvement options were tested, then the best cost effective option was selected. Finally, the standard ventilation systems were proposed to minimize the exposure levels of DMF.
