Recently published a paper on adequacy of energy absorbers in Safety Science. Let me know if you are interested in research of fall protection equipment. Email me at y.goh”at”curtin.edu.au (replace the “at” with @).
Archive for the ‘Fall Protection’ Category
Adequacy of personal fall arrest energy absorbers
Monday, March 29th, 2010Fall arrest shock or impact force
Thursday, March 26th, 2009A lot of people are confused on how to calculate fall arrest shock force… here’s a simple equation to determine the average impact or shock force during fall arrest:
Average impact force, F = mg(h + x) / x
m = mass
g = gravity
h = free fall distance (from initial position to just before deployment of energy absorber or other energy absorbing component)
x = stretch or extension of the fall arrest system during fall arrest
Note that there are lots of assumptions in this equation. The Canadian standards has good information on design of fall arrest systems.
Sydney Scaffold Collapse
Monday, March 16th, 2009Saw a post on Kevin Jone’s SafetAtWork blog (see my blog roll) on an accident involving a scaffold collapse.
The accident is reported in this website. Note that there had been a scaffold incident just weeks before this accident.
The victim did not put on his harness, the other painter that did survived. Based on the report, it seems like a scaffold connection failed… fall arrest system harnesses is a last line of the defence that should never be neglected.
Apparrently the painter that survived was hanging on the harness for about 45 minutes, luckily he was able to stand on a window ledge, if not suspension trauma could have set in.
Solid Fall Protection…
Thursday, January 15th, 2009The picture in this article tells a lot about the safety norms in small construction sites in Australia…
Many commercial divers untrained … so are rope access technicians
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008Straits Times has an article today titled, “Many commercial divers untrained” and it talks about the commercial divers in Singapore that only have recreational certificates and are doing under welding, cleaning etc work in the marine (shipbuilding and ship repair) sector. These work are significantly higher in risk levels than the usual recreational diving. The reason for lack of proper training seems to be the cost involved.
Similar situation occur in rope access work in Singapore. Rope access technicians are using sport climbing certificates to do rope access work. Some only use seat harnesses to descend down buildings… using ascenders (which might tear the rope if loaded suddenly) as backup devices… do we need an accident before something is done? There are training providers in Singapore that provide reasonably priced courses, but I was told that the take up rate is low because these courses are not required by the Ministry of Manpower… do we need the government to keep telling us what is right and what is required? *sigh*
The general duties of employers under the WSH Act may be invoked if no proper training is provided… and especially when an accident did occur to an improperly trained rope access technicians.