Spark-Resistant Fan Construction for Fan Safety

Spark-resistant fan construction is essential in many industrial fan and blower applications. These include applications where the fan is handling explosive materials or where the fan is installed in hazardous environments. For example, dust collection applications commonly require some level of spark resistant construction due to the explosive nature of dust.

Three Levels of Spark-Resistant Fan Construction

The Air Movement & Control Association International (AMCA) classifies multiple levels of spark resistance, determined by the materials of construction. If your system requires spark-resistant fan construction, be sure you specify materials to fall into one of these categories:

AMCA-C

AMCA-C is the least restrictive. To qualify for AMCA-C, your fan construction must protect any ferrous (metals containing iron) parts inside the airstream from friction with other ferrous parts if shifting occurs during operation. We do that by building in a non-ferrous plate (typically aluminum) between the inlet cone and the wheel, and another one on the other side where the fan shaft enters the housing. The plates span the full diameter of the fan wheel. This construction ensures that if the wheel shifts, it hits the non-ferrous spool plate instead of the other fan parts.

AMCA-B

AMCA-B includes the AMCA-C requirement, but also requires that fan wheel itself must be made of a non-ferrous material. In most cases, the material should is aluminum, but other non-ferrous materials can be used if your application doesn’t allow for aluminum.

AMCA-A

AMCA-A is the most restrictive. It requires that all fan parts in contact with the airstream and particulates are constructed of non-ferrous metal, usually aluminum. This means the fan housing and wheel are often aluminum.

Hear it from the Application Engineer

Senior Application Engineer Fred Besasie demonstrates spark-resistant fan construction in this 2-minute video.

When you’re ready to start your project, reach out and connect with one of our application engineers to discuss the details of your specification.

Related Content on Industrial Fan Applications

There are many factors to consider in every industrial fan application. We’ve seen it all. Here are related pages and posts that might be of interest as you think about your application:

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