New facility set to be environmentally friendly

  • Published
  • By Lanorris Askew
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) --  A new aircraft corrosion control paint and depaint facility under construction here is designed to be environmentally friendly and cost-efficient.

The goal in building the new facility was to make environmental improvements over old processes, said Richard Slife of the 402nd Maintenance Wing quality and process improvement office.

Air Force Materiel Command officials call this weapon system pollution prevention. It adheres to Air Force initiatives to increase recycling and waste minimization efforts while reducing hazardous substances used.

The $72-million project will provide a covered, environmentally controlled area for maintainers to strip paint from aircraft and repaint them; however, the building's shell contains more environmentally friendly benefits.

New equipment will use a dry media blast process instead of chemical strippers. This process uses plastic pellets to peel paint away. The pellets can be recycled and the dry paint residue is easier to dispose of than wet paint and hazardous chemical strippers.

"Based on 2004 emission data ... we can expect about a 12-ton annual reduction in volatile organic compounds ... due to the new depaint facility utilizing dry media as a depaint method instead of chemical strippers," said Mark Summers, air quality engineer.

Jerry Thovson, 778th Civil Engineer Squadron mechanical engineer and base project manager for the facility, said the environmental impact is not the only advantage.

The introduction of recirculated air has cost-efficient savings as well.

"This process provides energy savings and a better flow of air across the aircraft surface giving you a better quality paint job," Mr. Summers said. "In addition, it reduces exposure levels for employees because of improvement in ventilation."

When the new facility is completed in March 2007, it will also generate less waste thanks to plural component proportioning systems. These are self-contained epoxy paint proportioning and mixing systems that mix a more precise paint.

The new facility is also changing from a high-volume, low-pressure paint system to an air-assisted, airless paint gun system. The system uses hydraulic pressure to pump paint with a small amount of air injected at the end of the process, causing paint to disperse into smaller droplets that are more evenly distributed. The efficiency averages about 95 percent when coating large surfaces and about 85 percent when coating small surfaces.

Although the figures for the depaint hangar haven't been factored, numbers show a first-cost savings of about $4.5 million, Mr. Thovson said. Maintenance savings are estimated at $150,000 per year.

"We're also looking at an annual energy savings of around $800,000 per year," he said. "Those numbers consider not only the proportional savings from the smaller equipment, but also the ability to control humidity without wasting energy on heat."

(Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)