Search Results for safety risk assessment

Risk assessments (RAs) must be customized to the specific workplaces and to the actual work being performed. It is performed to make the workers and their management aware of the hazards in the work environment, identify each risk in a methodical manner, and put in place a plan to mitigate the hazards. Information on risk assessment presented in this article provides a logical approach that can be taken to minimize risk and maximize thermal spray practitioners' safety. There are basically four steps to improving operational safety by using RAs: identifying the risks for each activity, rating the risk, putting in place the actions required to minimize risk, and reviewing and updating the RAs on a regular basis. The article presents two case studies to illustrate the concepts involved in RAs.

This article discusses the safety issues associated with the design and operation of thermal spray booths and spray box structures and the equipment or systems required for operating thermal spray processes. It describes the design elements necessary to mitigate sound, dust and fume, ultraviolet light, and mechanical hazards. The means selected for safeguarding personnel must be based on a formal risk assessment that meets ANSI/RIA standards. The safeguards include sensing devices, barriers, awareness signals, procedures, and training. It also provides guidelines that are intended to increase the safety awareness and the use of safety practices for gas and liquid piping and electrical equipment within thermal spray installations.

This article provides a background to the biological evaluation of medical devices. It discusses what the ISO 10993 standards require for polymeric biomaterials and presents examples of qualitative and quantitative tests that can be used to satisfy these requirements. The article describes infrared (IR) and thermal analyses that are used extensively to fingerprint polymeric materials. It also presents a discussion on the chemical characterization and risk assessment of extracts. Background information on risk assessments of extracts is also included. The four basic steps that are commonly used in the risk assessment process are discussed. These include hazard identification, dose-response assessment, and exposure assessment, and risk characterization.

Risk and hazard analysis can be effectively used during design reviews to provide valuable feedback to the design to avoid failures. This article discusses the types of risks, namely, real risk, statistical risk, predicted risk, and perceived risk. It describes the principle and technical methods of risk/hazard analysis practiced in the industry to identify possible hazards and the resources necessary to avoid or reduce risks. These methods include the failure mode and effect analysis, fault tree analysis, event tree analysis, risk/benefit analysis, safety analysis, and probabilistic estimates.

This article provides information on personal protective equipment (PPE), consistent with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Personal Protective Equipment Standard (29 CFR 1910.132-138). This standard is intended to protect individuals from the risk of injury by creating a barrier against workplace hazards. This article provides guidelines for establishing PPE programs with an overview of the responsibilities for employers, supervisors, and employees, assessing hazards associated with thermal spray operations, and training workers about PPE, as well as guidelines for selecting, using, and maintaining PPE. It presents an overview of eye, face, head, hand, foot, hearing, fall, and respiratory protection. Respiratory and hearing protection should be used in conjunction with industrial hygiene monitoring.

This article focuses on the aspects associated with inspection related to pressure vessels and pipework. These aspects include inspection policy, inspection planning and procedures, inspection strategy, inspection methodology, preparation for inspection, invasive inspection, internal visual inspection, and non-invasive inspection. Inspection execution, risk-based inspection, competence assurance of inspection personnel, inspection coverage, inspection periodicity, inspection anomaly criteria, assessment of fitness, and reporting requirements, are also discussed. The article addresses the data acquisition, reporting and trending, and review and audit for the inspection. It reviews inspection techniques, including visual inspection, ultrasonic inspection, and radiographic inspection.

Health and safety are critically important issues, and there are numerous aspects of the production and use of metal powders that may entail exposure to hazardous conditions. This article provides a discussion on the issues associated with the safe production and handling of metal powders and the safe operation of continuous mesh belt sintering furnaces with combustible atmospheres. It also provides a comprehensive high-level overview of the safety-related issues and concerns related to the use of compacting presses in the manufacturing sector.

Products liability is a legal term for the action whereby an injured party (plaintiff) seeks to recover damages for personal injury or property loss from a producer and/or seller when the plaintiff alleges that a defective product caused the injury or loss. This article provides information on the legal bases for products liability and definitions for two types of defects: manufacturing defects and design defects. It summarizes other possible defects in design as well as preventive measures.

This article discusses the three legal theories on which a products liability lawsuit is based and the issues of hazard, risk, and danger in the context of liability. It describes manufacturing and design defects of various products. The article explains a design that is analyzed from the human factors viewpoint and details the preventive measures of the defects, with examples. It presents four paramount questions relating to the probability of injury which are asked even when one executes all possible preventive measures carefully and thoroughly.

This article provides an overview of the concepts of environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) risk incidents, then discusses these concepts relative to additive manufacturing (AM): the multiple intrants, process parameters, and equipment, as well as the resulting products and wastes. The article discusses additive manufacturing hazards, which are broken down into material hazards, equipment/process hazards, and facility hazards. The environmental impact of AM and the development of EH&S standards for AM also are covered in the article.

External corrosion direct assessment (ECDA) is a structured process intended for use by pipeline operators to assess and manage the impact of external corrosion on the integrity of underground pipelines. This article focuses on four steps of ECDA, namely, preassessment, indirect examinations, direct examination, and post assessment. The ECDA tool selection matrix used to determine the tool choices is also presented.

The purpose of this article is to assist the reader in understanding the role that an engineering expert witness plays in evaluating incidents related to product liability, so that he or she may become better acquainted with the role that an engineer plays in such litigation. The topics covered are admissibility of expert opinions, how to evaluate data, factual evidence, mandatory and voluntary standards, physical evidence, medical records, scientific literature, design decisions evaluation, environment of use, user's contribution, reports of opposing experts, report of findings, and deposition and trial testimonies.

This article provides an overview of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and discusses their direct and indirect effects on human health. It provides a detailed description of the exposure levels of EMFs in residential and work environments. The article examines the international and European standards and regulations regarding occupational exposure to EMFs encountered in industrial activities. It discusses the categories of work equipment or activities that may expose the worker above and under the orientation value. The article also describes the main principles underlying the protection system adopted for the frequency range of 50 Hz to 10 MHz.

During metal powder production, powder and/or dust handling, compaction, and part finishing operations, many safety and environmental risks exist. This article is a detailed account of the types of safety hazards that can exist and the issues that occur during metal powder handling, as well as recommendations and strategies that can be employed to both prevent and protect against damaging effects from powder exposure, fire and/or explosions, or environmental impact events.

This article provides an outline of the issues to consider in performing a probabilistic life assessment. It begins with an historical background and introduces the most common methods. The article then describes those methods covering subjects such as the required random variable definitions, how uncertainty is quantified, and input for the associated random variables, as well as the characterization of the response uncertainty. Next, it focuses on specific and generic uncertainty propagation techniques: first- and second-order reliability methods, the response surface method, and the most frequently used simulation methods, standard Monte Carlo sampling, Latin hypercube sampling, and discrete probability distribution sampling. Further, the article discusses methods developed to analyze the results of probabilistic methods and covers the use of epistemic and aleatory sampling as well as several statistical techniques. Finally, it illustrates some of the techniques with application problems for which probabilistic analysis is an essential element.

This article discusses the occupational health hazards related to industrial protective coating application and removal. It explains the health hazards associated with coating constituents such as lead, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, silica, and asbestos. The article also discusses hazard evaluation, hazard controls, Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, and industry consensus standards. It concludes with a description of containment systems to prevent environmental exposures from industrial paint removal projects.

The intent of this article is to assist the failure analyst in understanding the underlying engineering design process embodied in a failed component or system. It begins with a description of the mode of failure. This is followed by a section providing information on the root cause of failure. Next, the article discusses the steps involved in the engineering design process and explains the importance of considering the engineering design process. Information on failure modes and effects analysis is also provided. The article ends with a discussion on the consequence of management actions on failures.

This article provides information on life assessment strategies and conceptually illustrates the interplay of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and fracture mechanics in the damage tolerant approach. It presents information on probability of detection (POD) and probability of false alarm (PFA). The article describes the damage tolerance approach to life management of cyclic-limited engine components and lists the commonly used nondestructive evaluation methods. It concludes with an illustration on the role of NDE, as quantified by POD, in fully probabilistic life management.

Through detection of the wear, risk assessment can be performed, along with a related time to failure estimation through technologies such as electrical signature analysis (ESA) and motor current signature analysis. This article discusses the principle of operation of data collectors for ESA measurements and illustrates the evaluation of broken rotor bars and a broken shaft. It describes the detection of faults in bearings using ESA and provides information on the investigation of gearboxes and related components in a wind generator.