Ventilation for the Automotive Industry and Suppliers

The automotive supply industry is one of the few sectors where very different ventilation needs sit side by side in a single factory. Heat and oil mist on the press line, metal fume in the welding cells, solvent vapour and high cleanliness requirements in the paint shop, comfort and dust control on the assembly line. Each of these areas needs its own solution; trying to solve them all with one central system produces a result that fully solves none of them.

Welding and spot welding lines

The most common need in automotive supply is welding fume extraction. In robotic welding cells, extraction is calculated from the cell volume and the cell is kept at slight negative pressure, so fume does not escape when the door opens. At manual welding stations, articulated extraction arms are used and the system is sized for the number of stations running at the same time.

Spot welding produces less fume than MIG/MAG welding, but there is a smoke and odour load from oil evaporating off the sheet. On these lines extraction is usually placed on the line, directly above the weld point.

Pressing and forming

Press lines carry two loads together: heat from the machines and oil mist from the lubricant. General ventilation installed without calculating the heat load is not enough to bring down the temperature next to the press in summer. The solution is usually twofold: oil mist is captured at source inside the machine, and heat is removed by general ventilation or spot cooling.

Paint shop and drying

The paint shop is the most sensitive, highest-airflow area of the plant. Inside the booth, controlled airflow is needed both for the paint to settle evenly on the surface and to remove solvent vapour for operator safety. Supply air to the booth is filtered and temperature-controlled; in the drying section the heating load rises significantly.

Where the paint shop exhaust is discharged and where the fresh air intake is located directly affect booth performance. In a layout that short-circuits, exhausted air is partly drawn back in.

Assembly and quality control

On assembly lines the priority is operator comfort and protection from dust. Keeping the temperature in a workable range directly affects productivity. In quality control and metrology rooms, temperature stability becomes important; measuring instruments are affected by temperature changes.

Points to watch

Production schedules in automotive supply are tight and downtime is expensive. So the installation schedule is built around planned shutdowns; duct fabrication is completed in advance and time on site is kept to a minimum.

The second point is flexibility. In this sector, line layouts change with each new model. Designing extraction lines so branches can be added later avoids renewing the whole system a few years down the line.

Where to start

In automotive supply, a survey usually starts with a single complaint: most often fume in the welding area or heat on the press line in summer. But once we walk the facility, the list of needs grows. That is why every area is measured during the survey and needs are prioritised; the investment does not have to be made at once, it can be phased, starting with the area that gains the most.