DETROIT, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- General Motors has
received N95 certification for the filtering facepiece respirators
made at the company's Warren,
Michigan facility. The approval was completed through the
new public-health emergency process implemented by the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
In response to the urgent need to increase the inventory of
NIOSH-approved respirators during the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff
at NIOSH's National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory has
worked tirelessly to quickly evaluate new domestic respirator
applications for approval. These efforts are helping to increase
the supply of available certified filtering facepiece respirators
while ensuring that new respirators meet the protective standards
workers need and expect from NIOSH-approved respirators.
As defined by NIOSH, the term N95 refers to the filter class,
not the respirator. However, many filtering facepiece respirators
have an N95 class filter and many people refer to them as N95
respirators. A filtering facepiece respirator that filters out at
least 95 percent of airborne particles during "worst case" testing
using a "most-penetrating" sized particle is given a 95 rating.
Achieving an N95 rating required an entirely new manufacturing
process with four separate stations to help create a tight seal
around the user's face:
- Station 1: Four layers of fabric are sandwiched together,
tack-welded in place and then cut into rectangular "blanks"
- Station 2: Blanks are loaded into a template that welds the
outer perimeter as well as the pocket for the wire nose piece
- Station 3: The wire nose piece is inserted, the blank is folded
horizontally and a sonic weld in the shape of a hockey stick is
installed from the nose to chin
- Station 4: The excess material is trimmed
To expedite the launch of the N95 line, GM repurposed sonic
welders from the Brownstown Battery Assembly plant. These sonic
welders were previously used to form sub-assemblies in the
Chevrolet Volt's battery packs. For the N95 line, the equipment was
updated with new templates to create the weld patterns needed for
respirators.
After being trimmed to shape, the N95 masks follow the existing
assembly process at Warren: ear
bands are manually welded in place; completed masks are subject to
a quality check; and then masks are cleaned, bagged and prepared
for shipment.
As with face masks, GM will donate some of the N95 respirators
to frontline workers. To date, the Warren facility has delivered more than 4
million face masks and 230,000 face shields to frontline
workers.
To learn more about GM's efforts to help during the COVID-19
outbreak, please visit https://www.gm.com/coronavirus.html.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) is a global company committed to
delivering safer, better and more sustainable ways for people to
get around. General Motors, its subsidiaries and its joint venture
entities sell vehicles under the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac,
Holden, Baojun and Wuling brands. More information on the company
and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle
safety and security services, can be found at
http://www.gm.com.
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SOURCE General Motors Co.