Remploy Filters, based in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, UK, operates from a purpose-built 6,500ft2 manufacturing facility and provides a complete range of soft filters, pre-filters, bag filters, pleated panel filters and media rolls.
The filter-testing facility built by Letchworth-based DOP Solutions includes a three-fan variable air handling unit capable of testing single or multiple filters up to 1,830mm long, 915mm wide, or 450mm high, and at airflows up to 6,000m3/hr.
The test bed, which can have two operators testing in tandem, is inside a pressurised clean area served by two ceiling-mounted UDAF canopies. With white lighting, white polypropylene test bed, wall ceiling panels and two clear perspex side panels and access doors it has been heralded by staff as an excellent working area.
DOP Solutions’ aerosol photometry equipment is fully integrated and gives audible and visual performance of each filter tested, and with KIMO airflow instruments installed, Remploy has every measurement it needs to confirm production quality.
With the downflow clean air and that from the filter being tested, the room air is changed more than 100 times every hour, thus maintaining the test environment at very low airborne particle levels. Coupled with a clever filter sealing and clamping arrangement, this allows for HEPA and ULPA grade filters to be integrity tested with confidence.
Special features include being able to test the filter with its gasket fitted in environmental conditions found in high ISO class cleanrooms, with integrated flow and differential pressure instruments and easy adjustment and control of air delivery. DOP Solutions’ data acquisition software is also included.
Altogether, these features allow fast, safe, accurate and recordable testing of Remploy’s air filters to meet or exceed the requirements of EN1822, the European specification for HEPA and ULPA filters used in all clean air and containment applications, says DOP Solutions.