Fireproof your workforce

Flame-resistant apparel isn’t just for electricians and welders anymore — it’s becoming the standard uniform of every plant floor worker.

by Tom Hammel

Mark Twain’s famous saying, “Clothes make the man,” has come to mean many things, but in the case of industrial safety, particularly in arc flash incidents, he would be better to say, “Clothes save the man.”

Getting hit with an arc flash can cause serious injury or even death, but getting hit while wearing non-flame-resistant clothing is much worse.

“The biggest problem with an arc exposure isn’t necessarily the initial exposure but rather the possibility of the worker’s clothes catching fire and burning,” explains Mark Saner, technical manager for Workrite Uniform Company, which produces fire-resistant work apparel. “The arc blast will cause injuries, but it’s not as likely to kill you as it would be if your clothes also caught fire and you burned for three or four minutes. Then you’re really in trouble.”

“That’s one reason why the National Fire Protection Association developed its ‘NFPA 70E Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace,’ to tell everyone who works around electrical components that they need to have some level of protection.”

How much protection is enough?
This “burning” question is the main reason why companies have so much trouble determining their risk and just how much protection their workers should wear, and when.

Naturally, there’s more than one way to approach the problem. The first involves a full assessment of your factory that uses software programs to calculate the level of exposure a worker has in every area he works. Each piece of machinery with an electric motor is audited and a specific exposure level is assigned.

Junction boxes are also analyzed and assigned exposure levels and, based on these, you would match up the task with the garment that meets or exceeds that level of protection.

“The other way is a ‘short cut’ method with 5 categories — levels 0 through 4,” Saner explains. “You can look the NFPA 70E tables with typical operations and say this is typically a level 1, 2 or higher task. Depending on how sophisticated you are or how many people you have, you can also analyze your environment and then match the clothes that best suit your needs.”

Many companies will establish a baseline level of protection based on the most common hazard level workers face, such as Level 1. For example, if 80 percent of a worker’s duties take place in a Level 1 environment, then that becomes the standard work uniform. When faced with higher level tasks, the worker adds layers to reach the required level of protection.

“Companies go through many of these estimates to try to figure out what their guys ought to be wearing,” Saner adds, “but the situation is that not everybody has come up to speed on this yet.”

Determining the right level of protection needed is one thing. Getting workers to wear it all day is another. Here is where manufacturers really step to the plate.

Williamson-Dickie’s new Dickies FR (Flame Resistant) workwear lineup includes five-pocket jeans, carpenter jeans, work shirt and hooded duck jackets. Identical in pattern and fit to longtime Dickies favorites, Dickies FR clothes feature Indura and Indura Ultra Soft fabrics, comfortable cotton blend and 100 percent cotton denim flame-resistant fabrics made by Westex. Item 165 Miller Electric’s Arc Armor Combo jacket combines the protection of leather where it’s needed with the cool and lightweight benefits of a cloth jacket. Premium pigskin leather and Indura flame-resistant cotton combine to provide greater protection than a cloth jacket in overhead welding applications. It also features hidden snaps for the addition of a pigskin leather bib/apron. This patent-pending design allows for added coverage across the chest or thighs, depending on the welding application. Hidden snaps protect materials from scratches and damage while the bib/apron can be removed for light-welding applications. Item 167

Soft as fleece
Wait, it is fleece. As FR fabric technology advances, materials are getting lighter, stronger, more durable and available in a wider variety. Westex, which produces Indura Ultra Soft FR fabric, offers a broad variety of weights, protection levels and knits, including a new fleece. All of these offer comfort values comparable to 100 percent cotton clothing with the added benefit of flame resistance.

The new fabrics are also roughly 75 percent more durable than standard cotton work clothes, so garments will last longer. And, because the flame resistance is engineered into the fabric, Indura garments are guaranteed flame-resistant for the life of the product.

This is also true for some other FR fabrics such as DuPont’s Nomex.

In case of fire...
The type of material, its weight and style all contribute to a garment’s protection level, which, as previously mentioned, falls between HRC (Hazard Risk Category) levels Zero through Four. Level zero garments are untreated, like standard cotton. Most engineered fabric garments fall between levels one and two, the most common levels in industrial settings.

Hazard Risk Category levels in turn correlate to varying levels of a fabric’s true ATPV (Arc Thermal Performance Value) which is measured in calories of energy. Whatever brand of apparel you wear, you need to know the level of protection it provides.

“Manufacturers always list which type of fabric is in their garments because its very important to be able to identify the material in the event an accident occurs,” explains Michael Enright, vice president of sales and marketing for Westex, Inc. “The way a garment is constructed plays a little bit of a role in how well it protects but for the most part, the fabric itself is the critical aspect of protection. You need to have the fabric perform to get the protection you need. So asking questions about the fabric and the experience of the textile provider are very important to the selection process.”

What about us welders?
The time-honored craft of welding has had its own apparel for many years. Unfortunately, that apparel has been rather uncomfortable for just as long. This is changing. As fabrics like Indura, Nomex and Kevlar weave themselves into protective clothing for welders, those garments are becoming lighter, softer, more comfortable and more specialized.

A good case in point is Miller Arc Armor jackets and gloves. “Made by welders for welders,” the line includes three levels of protective jackets and four different gloves. Jackets range from a light-duty garment made of Indura to a combination Indura and leather model, up to a full leather jacket.

To Miller, comfort is the key to compliance.

“Product comfort has a huge impact on compliance,” says Bill Gardner, product manager for Miller’s Welding Accessories Group. “Noncompliance in the workforce with PPE is due to poor fit and lack of comfort, so we’ve focused our development efforts on producing a product that fits well, is comfortable and adds protection so employers can be assured their employees are wearing the standard of PPE required for that particular job.”

Welding leathers are getting softer, too. Miller jackets feature a premium pigskin which is softer and more comfortable than cowhide but just as durable. Some Miller jackets also feature hidden snaps for attaching leather aprons for extra protection in super-duty applications.

The bottom line is it won’t be long before someone, perhaps an OSHA inspector, asks what levels of FR clothing your workers wear. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to convert to a standard plant uniform, this is the time and this is the reason.

Feel like a pro all day Before you put on that fire-retardant shirt, what goes underneath it? Usually, it’s a cotton t-shirt, if anything. Now you have a better choice. Core Performance Work Wear from Ergodyne brings the temperature and moisture control technologies of professional sports gear to workwear. “Nobody outside of the sports industry has paid any attention to workers’ creature comforts in terms of the garments they wear next to their skin all day long,” says Tom Votel, president and CEO of Ergodyne. “Our Core Performance Work Wear has brought the temperature and moisture control technologies of professional sports apparel to workwear, but we also added safety and comfort advantages just for workers: UV protection, reflectivity and anti-stink.” Core Performance Work Wear garments are made of lightweight high-tech fabrics that transport moisture away from the skin and move it to the outside where it can evaporate. The garments also feature treatments engineered to resist bacterial growth and reduce odor. Innovative construction and flat-seam stitches provide flexibility and all-day comfort without chafing. Item 166

This article appeared in the August/September 2007 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2007.

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