Inventor’s Corner

Frameless cleanroom door

The invention is a stud component (A) for a cleanroom wall system that, in addition to supporting wall panels (B) also suspends a pivoting door (C), eliminating the need for a separate, standard doorframe.

The free edge (D) of the door, along with the stud, serves as the doorframe and hinge. Noting the pivot point (E), the door swings in that direction and engages with a gasket (F) when closed. According to the inventors, the nature of the wall and door stud components reduces the material and labor cost associated with acquiring and constructing doorframes in a cleanroom wall system.

Patent number: 6,615,556 B2
Date granted: Sept. 9, 2003
Inventors: Dennis O. Cates, of Tualtin, Ore., and Roger K. Crawford, of Salem, Ore.

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Adjustable clean-air environment

The enclosures or minienvironments have adjustable clean-gas flow mechanisms, as well as other methods of enclosed pressure differential distribution technology to provide isolation of materials from airborne micro-particulate contamination.

Thanks to a small footprint, it has several applications since it is a modular, selectable, clean-gas flow environment for handling and isolating materials.

The environment can be placed in a cleanroom and provides filtered air for gas through pre-filters (A). Air then flows to a gas-flow generator (B) into a gas filter (C), and into a filtered gas-flow space (D). An embodiment of the invention provides a first plenum (E) and a second plenum (F) so that both a horizontal filtered gas flow and vertical filtered gas flow may be used separately or in combination within the same filtered gas flow space (D).

Patent number: 6,632,260 B1
Date granted: Oct. 14, 2003
Inventors: Warren Siemers and Gary D. Hamor, of Stratotech Corp. (Loveland, Colo.)

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Air barrier

The air barrier system allows the isolation of a central volume or one volume from another without the use of physical barriers. Vortices are formed within ducts (A, B) at opposite ends, or ends of the isolated area (C). Air (D) funneled by fans (E) follows a toroidal path through the ducts into an area between the ceiling (F) and floor (G).

Flow-straightening vanes (H) prevent air from swirling. Applications include air curtains, oxygen tents, cleanrooms and testing chamber apparatus.

Patent number: 6,623,352 B2
Date granted: Sept. 23, 2003
Inventor: Lewis Illingworth, of Vortex Holding Co. (Avenel, N.J.)

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