Arc Flash/Arc Blast Review with Safety Suggestions for Design & Maintenance

Many of today’s manufacturing plants have removed asbestos from their facilities, but some still manufacture products that contain legal amounts of asbestos. Although exposure at these plants is well monitored and minimal, there is no safe level of asbestos exposure according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Republic Windows & Doors transformed their plant safety for the sake of their workers. By implementing 3 "outs" they were able to make significant safety gains in just a few short years, even with high turnover rates and unskilled labor. If they can improve safety and job quality at the same time, so can you!

Trelleborg has developed a product, that can withstand a jet fire - the cause of the Piper Alpha disaster. The product is already in use on several platforms, primarily in the North Sea. To date, some NOK 7 million in development costs- has been invested annually. These costs are shared by the project sponsors, comprising the Norwegian government and a number of oil companies. Continued development is not expected to be as costly and will focus more on handling other derivatives, such as gas and oil, and possibly being able to offer a material in other colors for customers who wish to customize their equipment using their own color schemes.

In this advisory, we are going to demonstrate how hazardous, documented, service, repair, and troubleshooting recommendations have proliferated the fluid power industry, leaving unsuspecting persons vulnerable to possible injury or death. Unsafe service, repair, and troubleshooting recommendations are running rampant throughout the fluid power industry - and there is no end in sight!

The answer is, it depends. For example, a traditional cleaner/degreaser, of which there are literally hundreds on the market, generally does an adequate job of cleaning. However – and this is an ongoing problem – the majority of them basically move the contamination from one location to another. The result? This cost of hydrocarbon removal is added to the clean-up process, plus your employees could be at risk of additional from toxins in the cleaner. So, how do you clean, provide a safe product for your employees and contribute to an active pollution prevention program?

Confined space entry safety. A confined space is anywhere not normally meant for human habitation in which access maybe restricted and the conditions in the confinement may be inadequate to support life or could cause engulfment. Obvious places are tanks, vessels, silos and below ground pits. The less obvious ones are cold rooms, areas of plant sandwiched between machinery and equipment, tip truck trays and open pit mines. 

In the past few years, Hydrovacs and "daylighting" have gained industry acceptance by minimizing the challenges of exposing underground pipelines, fiber-optics, and utilities. "Daylighting" is a non-destructive process using pressurized water (hydro) and a vacuum system (vac) to remove soil cover, thereby allowing a visual observation of underground lines. Hydrovacs expose these facilities to daylight, thus the term "daylighting".