SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Project Summary Abstract Inmore thanAmerican workers went home with amputationslacerationsand other traumatic injuries as a result of industrial machineryiInclude thefatalities and the economic impact of these injuries is estimated at $billion annuallyiiThe most concerning aspect of these statistics is that many of these incidents were caused by known hazards and could have been preventedor the severity significantly reducedwith the installation of effective machine safeguardsThe Occupational Safety and Health AdministrationOSHArequires machine safeguards on all machinery yet machine guarding has been on OSHA s list ofTopMost Frequently Cited Standardsfor over a decadeiiiAt MAKESafe Toolswe describe the most common of these hazards as BREECHtool Bindingaccidental RestartEmergency situationshazardous Energyand Coasting HazardsivOSHA recommends engineering controls as an effective means of safeguarding against these and other hazards yet there are practical obstacles to implementing effective controlsThe first obstacle is a lack of feasible abatement strategiesFor tool binding and coasting hazards in particularno practical solutions are currently available in the industry and the hazards are therefore largely unmitigated and even treated as acceptable risks to worker safetyThe most significant obstacle effecting machine guardinghoweveris the cost and complexity of abatementBusinesses are left to ideatedesignand integrate complex custom solutions on a machine by machine basis using a myriad of specialized controllers and components which deters companies from taking actionWe propose the development of a technology to detect tool bindinga currently known but undetectable hazardand to prevent operator injury by mitigating the hazard in real timeFurthermorewe propose to leverage the same hardware and technology to also mitigate other known BREECH hazardsLastlywe propose to develop this technology in such a way that it can be installed in line with the existing machine power cords and requires no other machine modificationThis development work will make available the detection and control of a hazard that is not currently mitigated in the industryThe inclusion of complementary technologies into a single userinstallable device will reduce the cost and complexity of effective machine safeguardingthereby increasing implementation rates and preventing operator injury throughout the industryConsidering the novelty of providing this comprehensive functionality from a single device and the variety of compatible machines that may be installed downstream of the devicethe aim of the proposed work is to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of such a device across three domainsThese domains include hazard detectabilitythe ability of the device to reliably detect said hazardshazard avoidancethe ability of the device to protect an operator from the hazardand the compatibility of the device with varied downstream machine characteristics Project Narrative Despite regulatory requirementsindustrial machinery remain largely unguarded and puts operators at significant risk of injury or death as a result of BREECH hazardstool Bindingaccidental RestartEmergency situationshazardous Energyand Coasting HazardsThis project will develop technology to detect and abate tool binding hazardsa BREECH hazard that is not detectable with current technologyand integrate this new technology with other known technologies to develop a single comprehensive machine safeguard that protects operators from all BREECH hazardsThis proposed comprehensive technology can be retrofit to industrial machinery by simply being plugged inthereby removing the cost and complexity barriers that currently prevent the widespread adoption of machine safeguards and thus preventing operator injury across multiple industries
