There are not many machines available that have been specifically designed for the cutting or shaping of reactive materials. It has therefore long been an established practice to employ standard machines, and somehow envelop them.

Standard machines seem not to want to be enveloped, as any designer will conclude when tackling the problem. And any design that does evolve seems to have a critical flaw that just cant be resolved, or just seems to move to another place if it can be.

Designing enclosures for machines requires a broad range of skills with particular emphasis on ergonomics, for the standard machine usually has control or setting up facilities accessible from at least 180 degrees but usually up to 270 degrees. Dropping tools or cleaning up off-cuts which normally present little difficulty in the open-air state can become almost impossible tasks once a machine is enclosed. Cutting fluids and lubricants can have a detrimental effect on the materials of construction of the machine containment, and visual qualities may become impaired.

If all of this is not enough, the internal environment of the enclosure has to be managed at low levels of oxygen and/or moisture. Indeed the total package of obstacles that need to be overcome require innovation based upon experience.

Our range and scope of enclosures provide many options to tackle the containment problems, and our proprietary designed oval glove ports (20cm x 40cm) allow for hand access to be made with the least restriction possible. Every effort is made to reproduce the operational access to the machine as if there were no containment, and visual qualities are viewed with safety and work accuracy in mind.

We have a number of design options for the total management of the contained environment, whether it is wet, dry, anaerobic or toxic. Pass through facilities are an integral feature of environmental management, and we have control systems that provide interlock protection and quality assurance.

Let us review your machine detail and provide a design solution to handling reactive materials. Size is no problem; we have designed machine enclosures up to 150 m³.

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