6 NEWS-COVER STORY HEALTH AND SAFETY IN WELDING
In most countries there is extensive legislation assigning responsibilities to employers to take reasonable care of the health and safety at work of their employees (e.g. in the UK the primary legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974). Welding is associated with several hazards to health and safety, and the employer needs to be able to ask informed questions:
THE WORKSHOP ENVIRONMENT The employer needs to ensure that the lighting conditions are adequate for the work undertaken – giving extra lighting where necessary. Welders stand for long periods of time, since they must keep a very steady hand position, and this means that they can become quite cold if the workshop is not sufficiently well heated. Conversely in hot weather, the environment can become unbearably hot, and the welder has not got the option of removing clothing. Both overheating and underheating can cause fall in comfort, efficiency and productivity.
Housekeeping is extremely important to avoid slips, trips and falls, damage to equipment and fire.
ELECTRICAL SAFETY Clearly, the employer needs to establish the level of competence of the electrician who is given the task of wiring the installation, and the type of maintenance which the installation and the equipment will subsequently need. In the UK there is a requirement for periodic electrical checks to be done on power sources. The design of welding power sources themselves has gone
through a number of changes, and for each, there are different standards of safety. The employer must ensure that his installation is correctly matched to the type he is using - for instance double insulated power sources should not be used with a separate earth lead to the workpiece.
FUME Welding vapourises metals, and anything which is resting on the surface. This gives rise to fume, which is condensed fine particulate material. The fume is mostly oxides of the metals, including any alloying elements, but it also contains gases produced in the arc, such as ozone or oxides of nitrogen, and decomposition products from any paint or coating which was on the metal surface. The nature and quantity of this fume depends critically upon the welding process, the materials and the welding parameters. Some is harmful to health, for instance stainless steel fume contains chromium, and welding galvanised steel produces zinc fume. Effects can vary from a bout of ‘metal fume fever’ to longer term, more serious problems if suitable fume removal is not
WELDING WORLD MAGAZINE | ISSUE 02 | APRIL 2018
carried out. There is guidance literature which may be consulted regarding the safe levels for each constituent, and the employer needs to be aware that for some fume constituents, there may be no safe level, and a statutory exposure limit may be imposed. Nickel, cobalt and stainless steel welding fume are the subject of statutory limits in the UK. Highly efficient exhaust apparatus is available. Some health surveillance may be necessary.
NOISE Welding environments are frequently noisy as other operations such as grinding, etc. may also be taking place. Some operations, such a de-slagging may take the noise up to such a level where it will damage workers’ hearing. In such cases this would mean that hearing protection is almost certainly required if the noise cannot be controlled by other means. Some health surveillance may also be necessary. To protect UK workers new noise exposure limits became law during 2006 that represented a significant lowering of statutory noise action levels from 85 dB(A) and 90dB(A) to 80 dB(A) and 85 dB(A) respectively.
Pictures supplied by kind permission of Channel 4 and JCB
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