AIHA Releases New, Revised ANSI/AIHA Standards
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), in collaboration with American National Standards Institute, has released two new fundamental consensus standards which promote conformity among assessment systems. As an ANSI member and accredited standards developer, AIHA serves as the secretariat for three ANSI committees that develop occupational safety and health related standards.
ANSI/AIHA Z9.9-2010 Portable Ventilation Systems standard describes fundamental good practices related to the design, manufacture, labeling, use and application, and maintenance and testing of portable ventilation systems used for the control of airborne contaminants or environmental conditions. Intended users of this standard include owners of facilities, designers and manufacturers of portable ventilation equipment, employers, industrial hygienists and safety professionals, maintenance personnel, and end-users.
This Standard is compatible with other recognized standards of good practice. AIHA said ANSI/AIHA Z9.9 intended to address a long-standing need in the ventilation arena. Portable ventilation is a broad and complex subject. Much of what applies to portable ventilation systems does not apply to fixed systems, and vice versa. This equipment is usually unobtrusive, often just another piece of clutter in surroundings crowded with other portable and mobile equipment and tools. Portable equipment comes in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the home-built to the shop-built to the factory-built, and the utilitarian to the elegant. Very little, if anything, exists in standard textbooks on ventilation about this subject, AIHA said, yet, the subject is considerably more complicated than meets the eye of the casual observer.
ANSI/AIHA Z9.10-2010 Fundamentals Governing the Design and Operation of Dilution Ventilation Systems in Industrial Occupancies revised standard establishes minimum requirements for the commissioning, design, specification, construction, installation, management, operation, maintenance, and testing of dilution ventilation systems (including demand dilution ventilation) used for the reduction, prevention, and control of employee exposure to harmful airborne substances in the industrial environment. The standard establishes minimum requirements to provide safe and healthful working conditions in industrial employee occupancies.
To purchase copies of these and other ANSI/AIHA standards go to www.aiha.org.