FALL SAFETY in STEEL CONSTRUCTION: a Research Study.

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Professional Safety, 2025, v. 70, no. 2: FALL SAFETY in STEEL CONSTRUCTION: a Research Study.
• Journal Article:
  Professional Safety
• Personal Author:
  McKenzie, E.A. ; Bobick, Thomas G. ; Hause, Mathew G.
• Description:
  WORKING AT ELEVATION presents a fall-to-lower-level exposure to all workers. In situations such as high steel erection, the typical and most effective techniques used in construction cannot always be implemented due to extreme challenges. The typical personal fall protection and fall prevention techniques utilized are:
  
  • A personal fall arrest system requires the worker's fall arrest lanyard, which incorporates a personal energy absorber, to be connected to the anchorage (tie off) above the D-ring on a protective harness, situated approximately in the middle of the shoulder blades of the worker.
  
  • Fall prevention requires a form of safety railing system or barrier to be implemented.
  
  Providing workers with fall protection for the high steel commercial construction industry is challenging due to the lack of accessible or existing overhead anchorage. According to ANSI/ASSP Z359.0, an anchorage is a secure connecting point or a terminating component of a fall protection system. Workers are sometimes forced to tie off at the foot level (walking-working surface), which could lead to falls with more than 6 ft of free fall and swing falls, depending on the lateral distance from the anchorage. A personal fall arrest system is designed to stop workers from experiencing free falls, which is the part of the fall before the personal fall arrest system starts to engage. However, even after the system engages, a worker will continue to fall. The distance a worker falls includes the free-fall distance, the harness stretch from the force of the fall, and the deceleration distance if the worker uses a personal energy absorber. OSHA determines and regulates the acceptable fall distances (the personal energy absorber pullout) to be used in the field. Personal energy absorbers, whether meant for a 6- or 12-ft free fall, must maintain arresting forces below OSHA's 1,800-lb limit (OSHA 2014a). The trade-off in using a specially designed 12-ft free fall energy-absorbing lanyard is that elongation of the energy absorber element will be greater, requiring additional clearance below the fall path.
• Content Notes:
  Author manuscript
• Subjects:
  • Humans
  • Accidental Falls
  • Construction Industry
  • Deceleration
  • Scapula
  • Walking
  • Metal Workers
• Source:
  Professional Safety, 2025, v. 70, no. 2
• ISSN:
  0099-0027
• Pubmed ID:
  40182215
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11963231
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Pages in Document:
  20-29 (21 pdf pages)
• Volume:
  70
• Issue:
  2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/261518/cdc_261518_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.43 MB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2edba998701cff870e28db2724b478c24337b8b2bb239300dc45f36f10bb17607584cb526c84d6b2cb6e463435ca83e1a17ff877ea2b76f334b965097879319b