ICS 13.340.99                         CHD 08

New Standard from Last Update.

NATIONAL FOREWORD

This Indian Standard (Part 6) which is identical with ISO 10333-6 : 2004 ‘Personal fall-arrest systems — Part 6: System performance tests’ issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards on recommendation of the Occupational Safety and Health Sectional Committee and approval of the Chemical Division Council.

Fall arrest equipment has been traditionally manufactured and tested as discrete components, which are then linked together in series to form a personal fall arrest system (PFAS) by the user, before commencing work.

This requires personnel in the supply and use chain who are capable of deciding which combinations of components can be linked together and which of those cannot.

Over the years, a continuous process of fall simulation and strength testing has revealed the dangers of linking incompatible components together, as a result of test failures, near misses and accidents. Examples have included: inadvertent release of connections, localized overloading or over stressing of components, and unexpected decrease in performance levels. These incidents occurred because insufficient analysis and attention had been paid to the particular combination of components in question, and because the interaction between the components in a fall was unknown.

Further investigation showed that the behaviour of a complete system under test could reveal short comings which could not be detected when the individual components of the same system were tested separately.

Consequently, in 1979 and 1985, other fall arrest standards with a lineage back to 1947 were revised to ensure that performance tests were conducted on complete systems. This allowed the complete PFAS to be tested in the actual mode of use, and an arrested fall to be simulated as closely as possible under test conditions.