Diseño y simulación de un sistema de ventilación y extracción de los vapores producidos en el sistema Elpo en la fabricación de carrocerías en la empresa CIAUTO CIA. Ltda.

Abstract

Electroplating processes in the automotive industry need special ventilation systems because of challenging operating conditions and limited workshop space. Ventilation system design is important to control the contaminants produced during the degreasing operations. A properly designed ventilation system can significantly improve the safety of confined workshops and maintain acceptable working conditions. This study is based on computational fluid dynamics CFD for the analysis of the performance of the industrial ventilation system in an electroplating workshop environment. According in this study, it was proposed three alternatives of industrial ventilation systems for the extraction of water steam generated by the electroplating process in the Elpo area of the CIAUTO Company. These alternatives were developed according to the guidelines of the ACGIH and ANSI manuals. A numerical CFD simulation was performed in ANSYS in transient state of the system and the alternatives suggested to assess the performance of the ventilation of these configurations. According to the results of the simulation, alternative 3 ventilation system design was chosen to control the behavior of the air-steam flow inside the Elpo system. In this case, alternative 3, due to the localized collection systems, allowed to extract a flow rate from 0.77 [m3/s] to 1.4 [m3/s], which means a 47% reduction in the steam concentration. As for temperature, the environmental conditions inside the Elpo system had a temperature reduction from 26 to 19 [°C], which was acceptable according to the operating conditions and thermal comfort, making alternative 3 the most suitable of the three proposed designs.