On Reducing Your Plant Noise Risks With Properly Designed Expansion Joints

For any plant manager, accurately identifying and mitigating noise exposure risks can offer a significant challenge - as well as a potentially costly liability if not successfully managed.

Potentially expensive problems caused by loud equipment noise can range from immediate workplace hazards to complaints from local community and fines due to violation of local and national regulations. For this reason, a conscientious plant manager must understand where excessive plant noise is created, as well as how best to prevent harmful levels of exposure from reaching human ears.

How Much Noise Is Dangerous?

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began regulating occupational noise exposure in the early 1970s. Distinguishing between sound emission (the noise created by the equipment itself) and sound exposure (the measure of sound energy that ultimately reaches human ears), OSHA standards establish a specific range of noise exposure tolerances generally considered to be safe and acceptable for the workplace.

Noise is commonly measured in terms of decibels (dB), with 0 dB measured as being equal to the weakest sound that can be heard by a large proportion of people under ideal listening conditions. The upper end of human hearing range is tolerant of noise levels at around the 194 dB mark. The halfway point - or about 95dB - is equal to the sound of a running subway train, as heard from a distance of 200 feet. Harmful noise exposure is generally accepted to begin at around 85 dB, roughly comparable to the sound of busy city traffic as heard from within an automobile.

Much like radiation exposure, harmful sound energy exposure is also measured in terms of exposure over time. In the United States, OSHA regulations specify that occupational noise exposures - the levels of sound energy that people will be subjected to in the workplace - must not exceed 90 dB for more than 8 hours within any 24 hour period. As the expected noise exposure increases in decibels, so does the OSHA-regulated exposure limit decrease: 6 hours at 92 dB, 4 hours at 100dB. At 115 dB, workplace exposure limits are regulated to only 15 minutes or less every 24 hours.

By reducing the amount of noise transmitted into occupied work areas, you can create more worker-friendly spaces within your plant while bringing more plant space within acceptable regulatory noise standards.

Sound Risk Reduction In Effective Plant Design

For both regulatory compliance and worker health reasons, it is in the plant manager's best interests to do everything within his or her power to prevent the excessive transmission of noise from operating equipment to occupied building areas. How can expansion joints - properly designed, incorporating features specifically to absorb ductwork noise - serve as crucial components towards achieving this goal?

From an engineering perspective, all noise management options either :

• reduce the sound energy created by equipment such as fans and pumps,


• divert the sound energy away from the receiver, and disrupt/absorb transmission to unaffected areas, or


• protect the receiver from the harmful affects of the sound energy as it arrives.

A properly designed and fabricated FlexCom expansion joint helps to perform the second of these tasks, by disrupting and absorbing the sound energy created by fans, pumps and other duct-connected equipment.

By effectively isolating vibrations along your ductwork - particularly vibration caused by fans and pumps - a quality expansion joint should inherently provide a fair amount of noise transmission damping as well. In addition, various design features (such as the addition of a joint cover pillow made from Teflon coated fiberglass, to absorb and muffle sound) are also available to reduce the noise that carries over your plant's ductwork to occupied workplace areas.

Properly designed expansion joints are vital components of your plant systems, making your facility more reliable, predictable and more cost effective to maintain. But in the battle to contain the costly risks that accompany noise pollution in the workplace, they can provide inestimable protection - and deliver exceptional value.

Would you like to know more about how FlexCom expansion joints can make your industrial plant more effective, efficient, predictable and ultimately more cost effective to manage? Visit us on the Web at www.flexcomonline.com for more information.

The interior flue gas surface of the 1800 Series is made from a heavyweight, abrasion resistant silica cloth, while the exterior is fabricated from our PTFE-based ChemShield laminated gas barrier fabric. Stainless steel frame construction and a wide range of custom design options make the FlexCom 1800 series the right choice for a gas exhaust application that requires the best.

To learn more about the FlexCom 1800 Series flat belt expansion joint, visit us at www.flexcomonline.com!

Are you in search of a truly superior expansion joint for your industrial engineering needs? CLICK HERE to contact us today and request a quote!

FlexCom Inc. 6864 Chrisphalt Drive Bath, PA 18014 Phone: 610-837-3812 Toll Free: 888-376-FLEX

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FlexCom Metal Bellows and
Metallic Expansion Joints.

A FlexCom® metal bellows offers an ideal solution to the problem of high pressure (up to 300 psi) liquid or gas transfer: flexible movement compensation coupled with highly durable thermal resistance, ideal for applications such as wastewater handling and desalinization.

A well designed custom metal bellows such as this, carefully engineered to fit detailed application specifications, can improve system predictability, reduce faults and improve overall application efficiency.

We've Moved!

Since 1991, Flexible Compensators (FlexCom) Inc. has focused its energy and resources upon the single task of becoming the industry leader in robust, dependable fabric and metal expansion joints. In 2008 we took the next logical step: moving into a new state of the art manufacturing plant. Our new plant in Bath, Pennsylvania today serves as our fully integrated and full service engineering, manufacturing and test facility.

Two-thirds larger than our previous plant, this new facility has effectively doubled FlexCom's production capacity, enabling us to offer even greater cost efficiency, quality control, fast shipping and customer service.