Clean Room Blower Layout for Cross-Contamination Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
In multiple clean rooms within a common enclosure structure, filtered air escaping from the rooms is often drawn back into the blowers, reducing the effectiveness of the filtration system and increasing the risk of contamination between rooms.
Innovation Solution
Rearranging the position of blowers to create overlapping clean air bubbles throughout the compound, with each clean room equipped with multiple blowers positioned to maximize the overlap, and allowing controlled air escape through the top wall to enhance the clean air bubble's height and coverage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If blowers are positioned to draw air from the common enclosure, then filtered air is drawn back into the blowers reducing filtration effectiveness, but increasing the proportion of recirculated filtered air creates a clean air bubble that minimizes cross-contamination
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple clean air rooms are arranged and equipped with blowers positioned to create overlapping clean air bubbles that merge into a larger shared clean air environment. This merging approach allows the system to simultaneously maintain individual room filtration while creating a collective clean atmosphere that reduces cross-contamination risk in the common enclosure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the potentially harmful effect of blowers drawing in unfiltered ambient air into a benefit by strategically positioning blowers to draw in previously filtered air that has escaped from adjacent clean rooms. This creates a self-sustaining clean air bubble system where escaped filtered air becomes the intake source for neighboring blowers, reducing both cross-contamination risk and filtration system workload.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If multiple blowers are used per clean room to create overlapping clean air bubbles, then cross-contamination is minimized, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The blowers serve multiple functions: they provide primary air filtration for their associated clean room, create overlapping clean air bubbles with adjacent rooms, and collectively form a large shared clean air environment in the common enclosure. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional dedicated equipment and justifies the increased complexity through enhanced system efficiency and cross-contamination prevention.
3Ease of repair
If blowers are positioned behind clean rooms away from access corridors, then they can be serviced, but clean air bubbles do not overlap effectively to minimize contamination in access areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends the clean air bubble protection into the vertical dimension by allowing filtered air to escape through the top of clean rooms and rise into the common enclosure space. This vertical extension complements the horizontal overlapping of bubbles created by blower positioning, providing three-dimensional clean air coverage that protects access corridors and personnel movement areas while maintaining blower accessibility for servicing.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This arrangement significantly increases the proportion of recirculated, filtered air, creating a highly purified atmosphere that minimizes contamination and cross-contamination between clean rooms, enhancing the overall cleanliness and reducing the risk of contamination entry.
Implementation Method 1
blower units (12) positioned outside the compound having air intake openings facing in different directions so that the clean air bubbles overlap one another throughout the compound. Each blower unit has a HEPA filter in the air intake opening thereof.
Implementation Method 2
the proportion of previously filtered air surrounding the blowers increases and can, in effect, produce a clean air bubble consisting of up to about 90% or more of previously filtered air
Implementation Method 3
the clean air bubbles created by the individual blower units overlap one another throughout the compound
Data Source
AI summary
A method of operating a plurality of clean room in a compound within a common enclosure and supplying each room with filtered air by a blower-filter unit by arranging the clean rooms and the blowers connected thereto in two parallel spaced rows with a corridor therebetween, and permitting filtered air to escape the clean rooms from beneath the walls of the clean rooms. Continuous operation of the blowers produces a bubble-like volume of air surrounding the blowers which consists primarily of clean, recirculated air escaping from the clean rooms. By arranging the clean rooms and blowers so that the clean air bubble produced by each blower overlaps the bubbles produced by at least two other blowers, the entire compound can be contained in a highly purified atmosphere consisting primarily of recirculated filtered air. A portion of the air from one or more clean rooms may be discharged in an upward direction through an opening in its top wall.