Gas Panel Safety

Key Takeaways

• Centralized gas panel safety systems reduce the risk of leaks and equipment damage compared to individual workstation cylinders.
• Integrated safety components such as flash arrestors and check valves prevent backflow and flame propagation.
• Gas panels improve operational efficiency by enabling smoother cylinder changeouts with less production disruption.
• Workspace safety can be enhanced with alarms, gas monitoring systems, and pressure alerts.
• In-house engineering, assembly, and testing ensure systems arrive ready for installation and compliant with safety standards.

Installing a gas cylinder at each of your workstations is a dangerous idea. One leak in a gas storage container or delivery subsystem could cause equipment damage to your entire production line.

Instead, consider gas panels. They provide a centralized location for gas cylinders and regulators, with pipelines sending gasses to output locations throughout your subsystems. In addition, implementation of these systems allows for gas cylinder switch-outs to happen more conveniently, with less disruption to the production floor. This also reduces the number of canisters taking up space on the floor.

Gas Panel Safety Features

Here are several gas panel and gas box safety features that manufacturers should be aware of that will help create a secure environment:

Flash Arrestors

When working with gas, which is highly flammable, flash arrestors are critical. They prevent flames that may have ignited inside the piping system from traveling backward into the gas cylinder. The flash arrestor is mounted inline and normally has a check valve attached, although the gas panel may be designed with the check valve in another location. Flash arrestors are common in delivery systems where acetylene gas and hydrogen gas are used.

Check Valves

Check valves are integrated into the gas panel to prevent the backflow of gas from entering the delivery system and accumulating inside the gas box. Check valves can also prevent gasses from entering other piping systems. This can occur if one gas has a higher set pressure than another gas cylinder connected to the same system.

Gas Panel Access Window

Some gasses are highly reactive and toxic. To control the valves without impacting the exhaust system in the gas box, have a small access window installed. The window offers extra protection.

Sprinkler Heads

Sprinkler heads are another design option an OEM may wish to consider for their gas panels. The sprinkler head can be installed inside the delivery system so that it releases a water pressure with a minimum of 25 pounds per square inch to deal with flammable gasses that catch fire when attached to the piping system.

Additional Safety Features to Consider in the Workspace

Besides the safety components that Axenics can manufacture into your gas panels, there are additional features to further protect  your team. Consider installing alarms in a panel located somewhere in the workspace. The alarms can sound to alert  a problem when a certain gas system is in use, such as an alarm that sounds for the reserve tanks or high system pressure.

There can also be alarms to warn when filters have high pressure loss, or when the purifiers are at a lower capacity. A gas monitoring system can also be installed when using toxic or flammable gasses that may build up in the enclosed room.

Reminder: A centralized gas system provides optimal control over gas output, rate, and pressure, reducing the chance of dangerous leaks.

With a centralized gas box system, gas cylinders can be fully used, cylinder changes are convenient, and production runs smoother with fewer interruptions. For example, if the main gas cylinder supply runs low and drops below a specified PSI setting, reserve cylinders are accessed through the regulator.

When you partner with Axenics on gas systems, know that the engineering, assembly and testing steps happen in-house, and your system arrives ready for installation.

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