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Tinker paint-stripping booths renovated

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  • By Mike W. Ray
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  All four 6,000-pound air handling units on the roof of Bldg. 9001 that evacuate noxious fumes from a pair of paint-stripping booths have been replaced.

The original AHUs were old and the new equipment is energy-efficient, explained San Tran, a process engineer with the 76th Commodities Maintenance Group, which operates the paint-stripping booths.

Two of the AHUs were replaced last September, and the other two were replaced in December.

A helicopter hoisted the last two 3-ton AHUs onto the roof of Bldg. 9001 on a frigid, blustery Saturday. The work had to be done that day because the helicopter, which is owned by a Michigan company, "was booked solid and was available that weekend only," Mr. Tran said. "Otherwise, we would have had to wait for several months to do the job."

Also, the AHU replacement project had to be performed on a weekend "because we had to evacuate a big part of the building" as a safety precaution, he added. "The wind was our primary concern," but the installation project "went without a hitch," Mr. Tran said.

Heat exchangers in the two paint-stripping booths also have been replaced, because air in the booths is now cooled with a chilled-water unit rather than with refrigeration equipment, Mr. Tran said.

In addition, half a dozen flues have been installed along the side of one of the booths to vent air from the booth outdoors, through the roof, and identical equipment will be installed in the second booth, too.

Each booth is 45 feet long by 35 feet wide by 12 feet high -- 18,900 cubic feet. The AHUs are designed to move air inside the booths at a rate of 100 cubic feet per minute, Mr. Tran said.

The booths are employed to strip paint from aircraft parts, such as ailerons, wing flaps, rudders, etc. A chemical stripper is applied to the part and left alone for about six hours to dissolve the paint.

Then it's washed off with heated water sprayed through a high-pressure hose. The dissolved paint chips are routed through a trio of grinders that chew the chips into tiny pieces and then are pumped into a plastic tank capable of holding a maximum 1,050 gallons of fluid; there they are ground one more time, and the resulting effluent is routed into the Bldg. 9001 trade waste system, eliminating the cost of pump-and-haul.

Inside each booth are panels that filter the air as it enters the booth and as it's forced out afterward. One wall of the booth is covered with four panels containing 16 filters, each two feet square, plus a partial panel around a door, and the opposing wall has a similar battery of the air filters. The fiberglass filters have to be replaced approximately every three months, Mr. Tran said.

The new equipment was installed in the first paint-stripping booth over a period of almost four months, starting near the end of July and finishing in mid-November, Mr. Tran said. Renovations on the second booth are expected to be completed by mid-March, he said.