A Review of Technical Requirements for Fall Arrest Energy Absorbers
Energy absorbers are an important component of fall arrest systems used in working-at-height situations. Most of the energy absorbers in the market are certified to the relevant national standards. This paper reviews the technical requirements for fall arrest energy absorbers and fall arrest systems in different countries to determine possible areas for improvement and propose areas suitable for research. Besides the fall protection literature, this paper includes a review of other relevant areas that deal with acceleration (and deceleration) forces, particularly aeroplane ejection seats, parachuting and vehicle crash testing. Some of the key issues identified include the lack of emphasis on kinematic parameters (acceleration, jolt and fall arrest duration) in the current fall arrest standards, the need to consider the variance in weight of workers working at height in specifying the capacity of energy absorbers, the potential benefits of a custom-build anthropometric testing devices and computer models to facilitate testing of fall arrest systems. The paper provides three suggestions for improvement of current fall arrest equipment standards and five possible areas for research on fall arrest equipment.
energy absorber fall arrest fall protection fall from height working at height occupational safety health
Yang Miang Goh Jeffery Spickett Janis Jansz
School of Public Health, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
国际会议
17th World Congress on Ergonomics(第十七届国际人类工效学大会)
北京
英文
1-9
2009-08-09（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）