Forensic Engineers and Consultants

Tag Archive: lockout/tagout

  1. P&ID’s, If You Please – Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams Explained

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    When investigating an industrial incident, one piece of information I always ask for is the relevant P&ID’s for the process.  P&ID stands for Piping and Instrumentation Diagram and is defined as “A schematic diagram of the relationship between instruments, controllers, piping, and system equipment.” A set of P&ID’s for an entire facility allows you to trace the entire manufacturing process from raw material unloading to finished product loadout, including utilities like steam, water, fuel, and air. That’s great information to have, but isn’t especially useful (more…)

  2. The Role of Interlocking Guards in Injury Prevention

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    In the three-part series on the CE mark, we scratched the surface of some of the requirements an equipment manufacturer must meet in order to earn this designation. Part three of the series dealt with some of the requirements for the design of a guard.  One of the items for consideration with the design of a guard is the frequency that someone will need to access the area protected by the guard.  If access is needed on a routine basis, often defined as more than once per shift, the guard needs to be designed to be movable instead of fixed.  Movable is defined as able to be opened without the use of tools.  Otherwise the frustration and time requirements of obtaining tools and removing a fixed guard will often lead to the guard being discarded. (more…)

  3. The Paths of Chemical Exposure

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    The Safety Hierarchy states that hazards should be mitigated first by engineering controls, secondly by guarding, and lastly by warning/training.  When the first two, engineering controls and guards, fail in a manufacturing setting, a chemical release could occur. A forensic chemical engineer can help determine the root cause of that failure. (more…)

  4. What’s Behind That CE Mark Part Three, Machine Guard Requirements

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    In the first blog in this series, we discussed the story behind the CE mark, the Machinery Directive, and the associated requirements regarding the design, production, and sale of machinery bearing the mark. The second blog discussed a cornerstone of safer machine design, the risk assessment. This installment will discuss another crucial piece of the safety puzzle, machine guard design. (more…)

  5. Ammonia – The Good, The Bad, The Smelly… Part Two

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    Now that you know what ammonia is (see Part One here), how it behaves, and how to safely store it and work with it, let’s look at some areas in industry where it is used.

    Anhydrous ammonia has a use in pollution control.  Industrial boilers and power plants burn coal or natural gas to make steam and/or electricity. When the fuel is burned using air as the oxygen source nitrogen gets exposed to the heat as well because air is 79% nitrogen.  The nitrogen gets oxidized and forms several compounds referred to as NOx (NO, NO2, NO3).  NOx compounds are harmful to (more…)

  6. The CE Mark and What Should It Mean to You? Part Two

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    In the previous blog (Part One) we discussed the backstory behind the two stylized letters CE and what it means to the design of machinery bearing the mark.   We outlined some of the requirements of the “Machinery Directive” (MD) which include what are known as “Essential Health and Safety Requirements.” The Essential Health and Safety Requirements incorporate an iterative risk reduction process during design that takes into account (more…)

  7. Ammonia – The Good, The Bad, The Smelly… Part One

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    Ammonia is a compound consisting of one nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms and is denoted by the formula NH3. Its boiling point is -28°F at atmospheric pressure, so unless it is under pressure, it is gaseous at room temperatures. Therefore, pure ammonia is typically stored under pressure in a liquid form. Household ammonia is only 5-10% NH3, the remaining 90-95% is water. Ammonia is extremely soluble in water. It is often depicted  like this: (more…)

  8. Machine Guarding and Risk Assessment

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    The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) “Top 10 for 2018” violations once again have Machine Safeguarding earning a position on the list. Machine safeguarding was the 9th most cited standard as noted in the list below:

    1. Fall protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501)
    2. Hazard communication standard, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200)
    3. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction (29 CFR 1926.451)
    4. Respiratory protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134)
    5. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147)
    6. Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053)]
    7. Powered industrial trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178)
    8. Fall Protection–Training Requirements (29 CFR 1926.503
    9. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements (29 CFR 1910.212)
    10. Eye and Face Protection (29 CFR 1926.102)

    (Source: www.osha.gov/Top_Ten_Standards.html)

    (more…)

  9. Defective Vertical Baler Causes Serious Crush Injury to Operator’s Arm

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    I recently worked on an interesting case involving a box baler. An employee of a butcher shop put some empty cardboard boxes in a vertical box baler and pushed the control switch to compact the boxes. After the 30 by 60 inch platen weighing 851 pounds returned to its raised position, the employee reached into the open space above the bottom door on the baler and began to clear cardboard from the bale tie slots in the bottom of the raised platen. Suddenly, and without warning, the steel pin attaching the platen to the raised hydraulic cylinder rod failed. The heavy steel platen fell and crushed his arm which was outstretched over the baler door into the compaction space.

    (more…)

  10. How a Central Indian Town Changed the United States Code of Federal Regulations

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    On December 3, 1984, at a pesticide ingredient manufacturing facility owned by Union Carbide, a leak occurred in the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) plant. Due to the toxic nature of the gases released and the plant’s proximity to local residences, the death toll was in the thousands; both plant workers and nearby residents.  The first recorded public meeting in response to this incident was on December 9th, in Institute, WV, the site of Union Carbide’s only US MIC production unit.  Full disclosure: my father was a research & development chemist for Union Carbide and Institute is about 10 miles down the Kanawha River from my hometown of Charleston, WV. (more…)

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