Do You Need a Soundproof Cleanroom?

The primary purpose of a cleanroom is to limit the concentration of airborne particles to specification, but there are many other factors that can be controlled in order to create a specific environment. Static, pressurization, temperature, humidity, and even sound can be controlled with certain modifications. Do you need a soundproof cleanroom? Let’s go through some of the reasons soundproofing your cleanroom might improve your facility. 

How Loud Is Your Facility?

Manufacturing facilities are often loud. This is a given. It’s also a complicating factor for both workers and products. We think of sound as noise, but it’s also vibration. The vibrations produced by a very loud environment can affect delicate manufacturing processes and produce their own negative effects. 

A soundproof cleanroom can create a still space where products can be manufactured with extreme precision. The aerospace industry exists because cleanrooms were developed, in fact. The successful control and monitoring functions of airplanes and rockets demanded the kind of precision that can only be produced in a cleanroom space. Without it, dangerous and deadly accidents happen. 

Employee Working Conditions 

In loud environments, workers commonly wear hearing protection like earplugs or sound mufflers. If the sound being muffled isn’t being produced in the cleanroom itself, soundproofing the room can be a better solution. Every garment or piece of equipment that workers need to wear within the room can increase contamination. Earplugs and earmuffs can shed particles and also make it harder for workers to complete their work. 

Adding soundproofing can make the cleanroom environment more comfortable for workers as well. Eliminating external noises will also eliminate hearing injuries and reduce worker stress and distractions. Noise pollution takes a toll on people that is seldom acknowledged. 

Other Considerations 

For some organizations, like research laboratories or military facilities, information about the work being accomplished within the cleanroom environment must be kept confidential. This would be another case where soundproofing a room would be a practical and protective measure to take to ensure proprietary information remains private. 

There are actually two options for soundproofing: you can soundproof the room from the external noise being produced, or you can install a soundproofed space around the external noise itself. Modular cleanrooms can be set up anywhere within a facility. Rather than supplying everyone within a plant or facility with hearing protection or forcing them to endure the noise, it might be cost effective and better for everyone to muffle the sound itself with a modular soundproofed room. Modular cleanrooms can be freestanding, or they can be built anywhere within a structure using existing structures. That’s one of the key benefits of modular cleanrooms. 

If you have questions about cleanroom design or use or how they can be installed within your facility, please contact us at Technical Air Products. We can offer our customers custom engineered solutions to meet specific requirements as well as our standard modular cleanroom options.