Fire protection; again, and again, and again …
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is paramount when working in high-risk environments. It can prevent debilitating accidents or even death. You might not be as thoroughly covered as you thought, however …
“Some flame resistant (FR) fabrics run the risk of losing their flame resistance after washing, and are subject to excessive shrinking, colour fading, premature wear and ultraviolet degradation,” explains Dries Coetzer, sales and marketing director of Charnaud – an international protective clothing manufacturer. “It is critically important that the clothing remains flame resistant for the life of the garment.”
He points out that Charnaud’s electric arc flash garments are arc rated and are guaranteed to remain flame and arc resistant for the life of the garment, which means that these qualities cannot be washed out of the fabric.
An arc flash hazard analysis, where the potential incident heat energy – expressed as units of energy per square centimetre of surface (cal/cm2) – is determined, revealed something very interesting …
“A test was carried out on a piece of the Charnaud FR fabric, which had an arc rating of 12,4 cal/cm2 as a new garment,” notes Coetzer. “It was re-tested after being used actively for four years, and having had about 200 washes. The results revealed a 30 percent increase in the arc rating. This proves that the safety of Charnaud’s garments actually increases over time.”