In a printing workshop, a rotary press is a very powerful noise source potentially causing sound nuisance for the personnel operating in the vicinity (in production hall) and sometimes also for the neighborhood. It is often necessary to use in such cases a high-tech soundproofing equipment to ensure the conformity of the facility with respect to the legislation on noise in workplaces and sometimes also with respect to the regulations in terms of fight against domestic noise.
ITS has participated in the construction of a noise barrier wall for a rotary press near Rouen in the county of Seine Maritime in the region Haute Normandie (France).
This industrial soundproofing device will offer a sound reduction particularly important at medium and high frequency where the maximum of the noise emission of the enclosed noisy equipments (among them: the folder) is requiring a specific design and a specific construction of the partitions of this noise barrier wall.
This noise barrier will be made with industrial soundproofing panels (metallic, modular), comprising:
- a layer of mineral wool (surfaced by a glass veil and protected by a perforated sheet) with a density to allow both the absorption of the sound waves emitted by the machine (their reflection would result in an increase in the sound level at the inside the enclosure and therefore, all other things being equal, outside ie where operators are likely to be inconvenienced or even in a situation of hearing trauma) and contribute to limiting sound transmission
- a non-perforated steel sheet, of suitable thickness for the sound reduction
Particular care will be taken in the realization of sufficiently airtight door sets (so as not to degrade the overall acoustic performance of the noise-barrier wall) and metallic glazed frames (in general: with very large dimensions, as required in this sector of activity) with multilayer safety glazing (in the event of breakage of the glass, the descriptions will remain stuck on a central frame), the acoustic performance of which may be equivalent to that of opaque sections.
Related features such as visibility for the operation of the machine, access for maintenance work, disassembly of some subsets of the soundproofing equipments ... were integrated according to the needs for this noise barrier wall in printing industry. Large glazed areas also contributed to the enhancement of the rotary press.
Such a project is illustrating the know-how of ITS and its commercial partners in the field of protection againt noise at work, for which many applications are also possible in other sectors of industry: spread the word !