Effects of sanding conditions on concentration of respirable wood dust under belt sanding

To investigate effects of sanding conditions on the concentration of respir able wood dust and the stock removal rate under belt sanding, the concentra tions in sanding Japanese beech (Fagus crenata Blume) under various conditi ons were measured using the respirable aerosol mass monitor (piezobalance-t ype), experimentally designed by the orthogonal array. We adopted the coate d abrasive grain size, sanding time, sanding pressure, and sanding directio n as experimental factors. The analysis of variance was used to examine the impacts in term of geometric means, maximum, and geometric standard deviat ions of measured concentrations, as well as stock removal rate. The results obtained are summarized as follows: (1) The concentration of respirable wood dust increased rapidly just after the start of sanding, and then reduced exponentially with time regardless o f sanding conditions. (2) Stock removal rate was affected by the coated abrasive grain size, sand ing pressure, and sanding direction whose influences could be additive due to no interaction among them, but respirable dust concentration was influen ced only by sanding pressure, and linearly increased with increasing sandin g pressure. Relationship between sanding pressure and geometric mean of res pirable dust concentration could be expressed by the equation under the exp erimental conditions.