Reducing Rack Costs

Proper Rack Design and Maintenance. By using plastic-coated racks, only the tips and contactors (which electrically and physically connect and support the panel to the carrying rack), have exposed conductive metal and must be stripped. If one of these is removable, then the amount of metal to be chemically or electronically removed from the rack is also reduced. This should lengthen the useful life of the stripping bath and further reduce the cost for hauling away or on-site treatment (if nitric acid is used) of the spent rack stripper. Use of racks with disposable contactors eliminates the need to strip the racks and could eliminate the use of nitric acid. 

One of the greater sources of potentially hazardous wastewater arises from oil-water separators at wash racks where manufactured parts and materials are washed. Because of the use of surfactants and solvents in the washwater, the separated water tends to contain emulsified oil that is incompletely separated in an oil-water separator. In addition, the sludge that accumulates at the bottom of the separator may contain hazardous constituents, including heavy metals and some hazardous organic constituents. Several measures that include the incorporation of good industrial ecology practice can be taken to eliminate these problems. One such measure is to eliminate the use of surfactants and solvents that tend to contaminate the water, and to use surfactants and solvents that are more amenable to separation and treatment. Another usefiil measure is to treat the water to remove harmful constituents and recycle it This not only conserves water and reduces disposal costs, but also enables recycling of surfactants and other additives. 

A reduced-commodity test was developed by FM Global that captured the flammability characteristics inherent in a rack storage fire while limiting the total quantity of test commodity to approximately one pallet load per test due to the significant costs, as previously discussed. 

The goal of remote circuit breaker racking systems and remote circuit breaker switching systems is to reduce the number of easiiy preventabie injuries and protect workers from eiectricai arc hazards in the workpiace. The safest and iowest-cost method of truiy protecting your workers operating on energized equipment is to increase working distance. 

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