Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) – more commonly known as Fibre Glass is a very common and versatile product. It is used in a very wide range of applications, products and industries.
What is GRP
GRP is made from two components. The first component is Glass Fibres. These are made from a mix comprising (primarily) of silica, limestone and soda ash. The mixture is heated to 1,371 degrees celcius to form molten glass. The molten glass is passed through spinning cylindrical sleeves or “brushings”. This forms the fibrous lengths.
The second component is a liquid polymer – or resin – mixed with a hardening agent that cures into a solid plastic.
These two components are combined in altering layers of fibres and plastic resin. The two components chemical bond to produce a strong, stiff and very durable material.
The Hazards
As with all dusts, breathing them in can be bad for you. Repeated exposure can pose severe health hazards. Foreign bodies in your respiratory system can lead to all kinds of health issues.
GRP dust – often created from cutting, grinding, sanding etc of GRP can create a lot of dust. This can be exacerbated by the working area being enclosed or poorly ventilated. The effects of GRP dust can be almost instantaneous – irritation to the eyes, skin, mouth, nose and throat.
GPR dust in your eyes can cause pain, watering and even impaired vision. Your skin can develop dermatitis – red, itchy, dry and soar patched of skin.
As mentioned above, GRP contains Silica. Silica dust is very small – approx 100 times smaller than a grain of sand. This means it is small enough to pass deep into the inner workings of your lungs.
Prolonged exposure can impair your breathing and lung function – chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, including bronchitis and emphysema and Interstitial Lung Diseases.
Damage to your lungs in this way can be irreversible…. once you have it, it’s too late you will have to life the rest of your life with it. Severe cases can be extremely debilitating.
Combustibility
The other risk from GRP dust is its combustibility. GRP dust is a dry dust, when suspended in air, it can form dust clouds.
When suspended in air, in the right mix, they have a large supply of oxygen in the air around them.
Being so small also, there can be a large number of particles in a small area. The small particles, when ignited burn very quickly, releasing energy very fast, thus creating an explosion.
An example of a dust explosion involving GRP dust is the CTA Acoustics incident on February 20th, 2003. The accident killed 7 workers and injured 37 others.
Workers were cleaning production line 405 with compressed air, fans and brooms. This aerosolised the dust layers, creating a dust cloud of GRP dust. The oven on Line 405 had a know fault with its temperature controller, causing it run hot. The door was left open to control the temperature. A fire started inside the oven and ignited the dust cloud.
The American Chemical Safety Board (CBS) discovered small fires were common at the plant and were routinely combated by plant personnel. The CBS also found that CTA was aware of the explosive risk the GRP dust presented and failed not only to communicate this hazard to workers but also failed to properly control the risk.
The sad thing is, GRP dust is very easy to control. A simple extraction system will decrease the risk dramatically. Good housekeeping and proper risk management will do the rest.
GRP dust, being a dry dust can be extracted by a range of extraction systems and can be easily filtered out of the airstreams with simple dust collection bags and particulate filters.
Units such as the BOFA DP400, Vodex DC103A, Vodex VX1001 or the AirBench range will easily handle GRP dust.
For larger system our LS range of dry dust collectors will easily run central extraction systems with multiple fixed points.
For more information on how to handle your GRP dust Contact us on 01489 899070 or Email us.
