ppe Archives

FR/AR Clothing Considerations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Written by Derek Sang and Scott Margolin on May 21, 2021. Posted in Worksite Safety.

In 29 CFR 1910.132, OSHA clearly states that personal protective equipment and appropriate training are required for individuals working in utilities, electrical petroleum, oil and gas exploration, and other industries where there is a danger of being injured by arc flash or flash fire.

Arc Rating Standards for Personal Protective Equipment

Written by Zarheer Jooma, P.E., and Hugh Hoagland on February 12, 2021. Posted in Worksite Safety.

Employees who interact with electrical equipment and electrical installations may be exposed to electrical shock and arc flash hazards. A previous two-part article titled “Arc Flash Considerations for Utility and Construction Activities” (see https://incident-prevention.com/blog/arc-flash-considerations-for-utility-and-construction-activities and https://incident-prevention.com/blog/arc-flash-considerations-for-utility-and-construction-activities-part-ii) discussed the electrical hazard identification and risk assessment. If the employer has taken steps to reduce the risk of injury or death...

Understanding, Selecting and Caring for FR/AR Clothing

Written by Derek Sang, CSHEP, QSSP on June 14, 2019. Posted in Safety Management.

When the original version of the OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269 standard was published in the 1990s, flame-resistant (FR) and arc-rated (AR) clothing weren’t even mentioned. The dangers associated with electric arcs were known at the time, but the standard only required that an employer not allow an employee to wear clothing that, when exposed to flames or electric arcs, could increase the extent of injury sustained by the employee. This eliminated use of garments constructed with synthetic materials – such as polyester, nylon, rayon and acetate – so the default was for employees to wear clothing made...

The Hard Hat Celebrates 100 Years

Written by Stacey Simmons on February 18, 2019. Posted in Worksite Safety.

When you think of people who have changed our lives with their inventions, you may think about Thomas Edison and his lightbulb or Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone. Not many of us would think to include Edward W. Bullard on that list, but 100 years ago – in 1919 – he invented the hard hat, which today is one of the most recognized safety products in the world and is responsible for saving thousands of lives over the past century. To truly trace the heritage of the hard hat, we have to go back even further to 1898, when Edward Dickinson Bullard founded E.D. Bullard Co. in San Francisco....

Rubber Insulating Sleeves and Arc Flash Protection

Written by Hugh Hoagland and Stacy Klausing, M.S. on October 11, 2018. Posted in Safety Management.

Rubber insulating sleeves are commonly worn with dielectric gloves in high-voltage applications to provide added insulation from electrical contact for those working on energized equipment. The rubber insulating gloves and rubber insulating sleeves are worn for shock protection; sleeves typically are worn with rubber insulating gloves when the arm can cross the minimum approach distance or the restricted approach boundary. A protector glove typically is used for arc flash protection and for mechanical protection of the rubber insulating glove, but this over-glove does not protect the entire...

Scenario-Based Fall Protection Solutions

Written by Rob D. Adams, CLCP, CUSP on April 18, 2018. Posted in Safety Management.

At least once in their career, nearly every safety worker in the utility business has been – or will be – faced with the need to use fall protection in an area where there is no place to tie off. In my role as a safety technician, I work with personnel in both generation and transmission business units; fall protection is needed in this line of work, but I have found that anchorage points can sometimes be few and far between. It’s a problem that clearly needs to be solved, and in this article I will share what my company has done to provide scenario-based solutions. Scenario OneDuring an outage...

Secondary FR Garments: Practical Solutions for Protection

Written by Hugh Hoagland and Stacy Klausing, M.S. on September 11, 2017. Posted in Safety Management.

Cleanup of potentially hazardous materials and flammable contaminants can sometimes be a part of an electrical job. When workers arrive on a scene, they cannot always be sure of the exposures or contaminants they will face. In electrical work, it could be oil that contains a small number of PCBs. This oil, and other contaminants, is flammable and can affect the flame-resistant properties of garments until it is washed from the garments. Working around flammable contaminants, as well as flame and thermal hazards like arc flash potentials and flash fire potentials, often requires a PPE safety...

Making Sense of Protection Requirements for Open-Air Arc Flash Hazards

Written by Lee Marchessault, CUSP on June 7, 2017. Posted in Safety Management, Worksite Safety.

Electric utility workers face complex, high-risk electrical hazards nearly every day. Information about shock hazards – which may come from impressed voltage, residual energy, induction, objectionable current flow in a grounding system or stored energy – has been taught to many of us for quite some time, as have the methods of assessing them. On the other hand, arc flash hazard assessments are still relatively new to us. In the past, most of us knew that an arc flash could potentially occur during the course of performing our tasks, but the level of the flash and the PPE requirements...

Injury Risks Associated with Climbing in the Wind Energy Generation Industry

Written by Naira Campbell-Kyureghyan, Ph.D. on June 7, 2017. Posted in Safety Management, Worksite Safety.

The growth of the wind energy generation industry in the U.S. has been phenomenal. According to the American Wind Energy Association, at the end of 2016 there were over 52,000 utility-grade wind turbines operational in more than 40 states, with a total capacity of 83,000 megawatts. The Global Wind Energy Council’s latest report shows that the U.S. has the second-largest wind power capacity, after China, with 16.9 percent of the world total, and employs over 100,000 people directly or indirectly. As the number of wind turbine towers grows, so does the number of people involved in their...

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