SAFETY STANDARDS
This Standard was prepared by the Joint Australian/New Zealand Committee SF-015, Industrial Safety Belts and Harnesses to supersede AS/NZS 1891.1:1995, Industrial fall arrest systems and devices, Part 1: Safety belts and harnesses. It is the first in a series of Standards dealing with this area of industrial safety, the full series being as follows:
AS/NZS
1891 Industrial fall-arrest systems and devices
1891.1 Part 1: Harnesses and ancillary equipment (this Standard)
1891.2 Part 2: Horizontal lifeline and rail systems
1891.2 Supplement 1: Horizontal lifeline and rail systems—Prescribed configurations for horizontal lifelines
1891.3 Part 3: Fall-arrest devices
1891.4 Part 4: Selection, use and maintenance
Principal changes from the previous edition of this Standard are as follows:
(a) The use of belts alone is no longer specified for any purpose. The Standard specifies only full-body or lower body harnesses for potential fall purposes.
(b) Restraint equipment, belts and lines, have been deleted from the scope.
(c) The degradation of polyester webbing may now be tested by artificial light exposure only. Two exposure light sources are now permitted.
(d) An attachment point for full free-fall-arrest may be provided at centre front waist level on a full-body harness.
(e) All points on the centre-line of both full-body and lower-body harnesses are to be tested for free-fall-arrest.
The work positioning harness specified in the previous edition of this Standard has been renamed a lower-body harness. Note that future editions of this Standard may not specify these harnesses as equipment suitable for arresting a free-fall.
The term ‘normative’ has been used in this Standard to define the application of the appendix to which it applies. A ‘normative’ appendix is an integral part of a Standard.
The ability of the human body to survive a fall with the minimum chance of serious injury will depend principally on the decelerating forces imposed on the body during fall-arrest and the manner in which those forces are transmitted to the body. These factors have been recognized in the preparation of this Standard in two ways.
Firstly, equipment used to arrest a free-fall, i.e., an unrestrained fall either vertical or down a steep slope, is required to be designed so that forces developed in the supporting lanyard during the fall do not exceed 6 kN, i.e. the deceleration is limited to 6g.
Secondly, this level of deceleration is readily survivable provided the person suffering the fall is properly constrained in a harness. There is ample evidence to show that even for relatively short restrained or unrestrained falls, the wearing of a belt only can lead to injuries such as broken ribs, or damage to the kidneys, spleen or lungs. For this reason this Standard envisages that, as a minimum, a person at risk of any fall will wear a harness.
Attention is also drawn to the problem of suspension trauma, the adverse consequences which can arise if a person remains suspended in a harness for any length of time.
AS/NZS 1891.4 gives a more detailed account of suspension trauma together with other requirements and recommendations related to the selection, safe use and maintenance of harnesses, lanyards and other fall-arrest equipment and systems, and should be read in conjunction with manufacturers’ instructions.
