DUST AND SWARF EXTRACTED SAFELY
August 1st 2004

Although aluminium alloy wing ribs and smaller components for the new Airbus A380 family are precision-machined on computer controlled machine tools, they still need to be deburred and polished by hand.

To remove the swarf and dust generated, the company has installed extraction systems from Nederman.

Wing ribs are up to 4m long which made extraction at source impractical for the rib polishing process. Nederman proposed a scheme to convert an entire room so that harmful dust could be extracted and filtered.

The ceiling was lowered to reduce the volume of the room, and the airflow was designed to carry dust away from operators.

In cell F at the Filton, Bristol, factory where smaller components are produced, seven tables have been installed, each with six extraction arms. These take swarf and dust away from the workstations to a centralised high-vacuum extraction and filtration plant.

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