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| Arc resistant personal protective clothing |
Description of Problem
A comprehensive look at electrical injury in mining and other industries was needed to help refocus the electrical safety research. Injury from electric arcs forms the largest single category of nonfatal electrical injuries in mining. A significant industrial electrical safety research effort has focused on protecting workers from electrical arcing hazards. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard 70E, "Standard for Electrical Safety Requirements for Employee Workplaces," explicitly excludes underground mining from its scope. In addition, accidental contact with overhead power lines was implicated in 20% of mine electrical deaths and nearly half of all other on-the-job electrical deaths. Many of these power line accidents were thought to be preventable.
Research and Development Activities
Two analyses were completed. One focused specifically on mining electrical injury and helped refocus mine electrical safety research toward electrical arcing fault injury. The second analysis of electrical injury patterns showed that power line accidents are the single greatest on-the-job fatal electrical hazard in general industry. Recommendations to fill research gaps were made.
R&D Outputs and Transfer Activities
The NIOSH research products gained wide acceptance in the electrical safety community. Results were given at an invited presentation at the IEEE IAS PCIC Electrical Safety Workshop, Oakland, CA, in 2003 and were published in several technical articles that analyzed injuries in the electrical industry.
Description of Intermediate Outcome
Refocused NIOSH mine electrical research is now bringing the relevant aspects of NFPA 70E into the mining workplace to afford miners better protection from electrical arcing injury. NIOSH attacked the power line injury problem by attempting to influence stakeholder groups to devote more of their research efforts to this area. Influential contacts in the electrical safety community now recognize the magnitude of the power line problem and are more receptive to research and cooperation in this area. In addition, training efforts have made inroads into other industries such as water well drilling, where power line contact is the leading killer. The electrical industry injury analysis published by NIOSH was described by IEEE Industry Applications Applications Society (IAS) President-elect H. Landis Floyd II as a "landmark study" of electrical injury in his column in the March-April 2004 issue of IEEE Industry Applications Magazine, and it was cited again in the May-June 2004 issue. This analysis has begun to shift research focus among IEEE Petroleum and Chemical Industry Committee (PCIC) electrical safety professionals toward the overhead power line problem. The analysis was also cited in several other technical journals.