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For example, a worker performing anchor installations in concrete can now swap between the same batteries for drilling, vacuum cleanup and epoxy injection, reducing the number of spare batteries they need to carry. Active Vibration Reduction is available on all of the new Nuron tools, with Active Torque Control a feature on many as well. He covers emerging technologies and innovations in the construction space, as well as new developments in equipment, tools, and building products.

With well over a decade of experience reporting on the industry, Jeff has an broad background in engineering and construction journalism. He is based in New York City. This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies.

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Kristen Panks. How does one print the vocabulary pages with the pictures? Theresa S. Ben Load More Comments. The skips should be free from danger zones for the mixer attendant and workers moving on passageways near it.

It must also be ensured that workers cleaning the pits beneath feed-hopper skips are not injured by the accidental lowering of the hopper. Silos for aggregates, especially sand, present a hazard of fatal accidents. For example, workers entering a silo without a standby person and without a safety harness and lifeline may fall and be buried in the loose material.

Silos should therefore be equipped with vibrators and platforms from which sticking sand can be poked down, and corresponding warning notices should be displayed. No person should be allowed to enter the silo without another standing by. The proper layout of concrete transfer points and their equipment with mirrors and bucket receiving cages obviates the danger of injuring a standby worker who otherwise has to reach out for the crane bucket and guide it to a proper position.

Transfer silos which are jacked up hydraulically must be secured so that they are not suddenly lowered if a pipeline breaks. Work platforms fitted with guard rails must be provided when placing the concrete in the forms with the aid of buckets suspended from the crane hook or with a concrete pump.

The crane operators must be trained for this type of work and must have normal vision. If large distances are covered, two-way telephone communication or walkie-talkies have to be used.

When concrete pumps with pipelines and placer masts are used, special attention should be paid to the stability of the installation. Agitating lorries cement mixers with built-in concrete pumps must be equipped with interlocked switches which make it impossible to start the two operations simultaneously. The agitators must be guarded so that the operating personnel cannot come into contact with moving parts. The baskets for collecting the rubber ball which is pressed through the pipeline to clean it after the concrete has been poured, are now replaced by two elbows arranged in opposite directions.

These elbows absorb almost all the pressure needed to push the ball through the placing line; they not only eliminate the whip effect at the line end, but also prevent the ball from being shot out of the line end. When agitating lorries are used in combination with placing plant and lifting equipment, special attention has to be paid to overhead electric lines.

Unless the overhead line can be displaced they must be insulated or guarded by protective scaffolds within the work range to exclude any accidental contact. It is important to contact the power supply station.

Falls are common during the assembly of traditional formwork composed of square timber and boards because the necessary guard rails and toe boards are often neglected for work platforms which are only required for short periods.

Nowadays, steel supporting structures are widely used to speed up formwork assembly, but here again the available guard rails and toe boards are frequently not installed on the pretext that they are needed for so short a time.

Plywood form panels, which are increasingly used, offer the advantage of being easy and quick to assemble. However, often after being used several times, they are frequently misappropriated as platforms for rapidly required scaffolds, and it is generally forgotten that the distances between the supporting transoms must be considerably reduced in comparison with normal scaffold planks.

Accidents resulting from breakage of form panels misused as scaffold platforms are still rather frequent. Two outstanding hazards must be borne in mind when using prefabricated form elements.

These elements must be stored in such a manner that they cannot turn over. Since it is not always feasible to store form elements horizontally, they must be secured by stays.

Form elements permanently equipped with platforms, guard rails and toeboards may be attached by slings to the crane hook as well as being assembled and dismantled on the structure under construction. They constitute a safe workplace for the personnel and do away with the provision of work platforms for placing the concrete.

Fixed ladders may be added for safer access to platforms. Scaffold and work platforms with guard rails and toe boards permanently attached to the form element should be used in particular with sliding and climbing formwork. Experience has shown that accidents due to falls are rare when work platforms do not have to be improvised and rapidly assembled. Unfortunately, form elements fitted with guard rails cannot be used everywhere, especially where small residential buildings are being erected.

When the form elements are raised by crane from storage to the structure, lifting tackle of appropriate size and strength, such as slings and spreaders, must be used. If the angle between the sling legs is too large, the form elements must be handled with the aid of spreaders. The workers cleaning the forms are exposed to a health hazard which is generally overlooked: the use of portable grinders to remove concrete residues adhering to the form surfaces.

Dust measurements have shown that the grinding dust contains a high percentage of respirable fractions and silica. Therefore, dust control measures must be taken e. Special lifting equipment should be used in the manufacturing plant so that the elements can be moved and handled safely and without injury to the workers.

Anchor bolts embedded in the concrete facilitate their handling not only in the factory but also on the assembly site. To avoid bending of the anchor bolts by oblique loads, large elements must be lifted with the aid of spreaders with short rope slings. If a load is applied to the bolts at an oblique angle, concrete may spill off and the bolts may be torn out.

The use of inappropriate lifting tackle has caused serious accidents resulting from falling concrete elements. Appropriate vehicles must be used for the road transport of prefabricated elements. They must be approximately secured against overturning or sliding—for example, when the driver has to brake the vehicle suddenly.

Visibly displayed weight indications on the elements facilitate the task of the crane operator during loading, unloading and assembly on the site. Lifting equipment on the site should be adequately chosen and operated. Tracks and roads must be kept in good condition in order to avoid overturning of loaded equipment during operation. Work platforms protecting personnel against falls from height must be provided for the assembly of the elements. All possible means of collective protection, such as scaffolds, safety nets and overhead travelling cranes erected before completion of the building, should be taken into consideration before recourse is taken to reliance on PPE.

It is, of course, possible to equip the workers with safety harnesses and lifelines, but experience has shown that there are workers who use this equipment only when they are under constant close supervision. Lifelines are indeed a hindrance when certain tasks are performed, and certain workers are proud of being capable of working at great heights without using any protection. Before starting to design a prefabricated building, the architect, the manufacturer of the prefabricated elements and the building contractor should meet to discuss and study the course and safety of all operations.

When it is known beforehand what types of handling and lifting equipment are available on the site, the concrete elements may be provided in the factory with fastening devices for guard rails and toe boards. The wall elements corresponding to the floor slab may thereafter be safely assembled because the workers are protected by guard rails.

For the erection of certain high industrial structures, mobile work platforms are lifted into position by crane and hung from suspension bolts embedded in the structure itself.

In such cases it may be safer to transport the workers to the platform by crane which should have high safety characteristics and be run by a qualified operator than to use improvised scaffolds or ladders.

When post-tensioning concrete elements, attention should be paid to the design of the post-tensioning recesses, which should enable the tensioning jacks to be applied, operated and removed without any hazard for the personnel. Suspension hooks for tensioning jacks or openings for passing the crane rope must be provided for post-tensioning work beneath bridge decks or in box-type elements. This type of work, too, requires the provision of work platforms with guard rails and toe boards.

The platform floor should be sufficiently low to allow for ample work space and safe handling of the jack. No person should be permitted at the rear of the tensioning jack because serious accidents may result from the high energy released in the breakage of an anchoring element or a steel tendon.

The workers should also avoid being in front of the anchor plates as long as the mortar pressed into the tendon sheaths has not set. As the mortar pump is connected with hydraulic pipes to the jack, no person should be permitted in the area between pump and jack during tensioning. Continuous communication among the operators and with supervisors is also very important. Thorough training of plant operators in particular and all construction site personnel in general is becoming more and more important in view of increasing mechanization and the use of many types of machinery, plant and substances.

Unskilled labourers or helpers should be employed in exceptional cases only, if the number of construction site accidents is to be reduced. Asphalts can generally be defined as complex mixtures of chemical compounds of high molecular weight, predominantly asphaltenes, cyclic hydrocarbons aromatic or naphthenic and a lesser quantity of saturated components of low chemical reactivity.

The chemical composition of asphalts depends both on the original crude oil and on the process used during refining. Asphalts are predominantly derived from crude oils, especially heavier residue crude oil. Asphalt also occurs as a natural deposit, where it is usually the residue resulting from the evaporation and oxidation of liquid petroleum.

Asphalts are non-volatile at ambient temperatures and soften gradually when heated. Asphalt should not be confused with tar, which is physically and chemically dissimilar.

A wide variety of applications include paving streets, highways and airfields; making roofing, waterproofing and insulating materials; lining irrigation canals and reservoirs; and the facing of dams and levees.

Asphalt is also a valuable ingredient of some paints and varnishes. Asphalt mixes for road construction are produced by first heating and drying mixtures of graded crushed stone such as granite or limestone , sand and filler and then mixing with penetration bitumen, referred to in the US as straight-run asphalt. This is a hot process. The asphalt is also heated using propane flames during application to a road bed. Exposures to particulate polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs in asphalt fumes have been measured in a variety of settings.

Most of the PAHs found was composed of napthalene derivatives, not the four- to six-ring compounds which are more likely to pose a significant carcinogenic risk. During drum-filling operations, 4 hour breathing zone samples ranged from 1. At asphalt mixing plants, exposures to benzene-soluble organic compounds ranged from 0. During paving operations, exposures to respirable PAH ranged from less than 0.

Potentially noteworthy worker exposures may also occur during the manufacture and application of asphalt roofing materials. Little information is available regarding exposures to asphalt fumes in other industrial situations and during the application or use of asphalt products. Handling of hot asphalt can cause severe burns because it is sticky and is not readily removed from the skin.

The principal concern from the industrial toxicological aspect is irritation of the skin and eyes by fumes of hot asphalt. These fumes may cause dermatitis and acne-like lesions as well as mild keratoses on prolonged and repeated exposure. The greenish-yellow fumes given off by boiling asphalt can also cause photosensitization and melanosis. The flammability of the liquid asphalts is influenced by the volatility and amount of petroleum solvent added to the base material.

Thus, the rapid-curing liquid asphalts present the greatest fire hazard, which becomes progressively lower with the medium- and slow-curing types. Because of its insolubility in aqueous media and the high molecular weight of its components, asphalt has a low order of toxicity. The effects on the tracheobronchial tree and lungs of mice inhaling an aerosol of petroleum asphalt and another group inhaling smoke from heated petroleum asphalt included congestion, acute bronchitis, pneumonitis, bronchial dilation, some peribronchiolar round cell infiltration, abscess formation, loss of cilia, epithelial atrophy and necrosis.

The pathological changes were patchy, and in some animals were relatively refractory to treatment. It was concluded that these changes were a non-specific reaction to breathing air polluted with aromatic hydrocarbons, and that their extent was dose dependent. Guinea pigs and rats inhaling fumes from heated asphalt showed effects such as chronic fibrosing pneumonitis with peribronchial adenomatosis, and the rats developed squamous cell metaplasia, but none of the animals had malignant lesions. Steam-refined petroleum asphalts were tested by application to the skin of mice.

Skin tumours were produced by undiluted asphalts, dilutions in benzene and a fraction of steam-refined asphalt. When air-refined oxidized asphalts were applied to the skin of mice, no tumour was found with undiluted material, but, in one experiment, an air-refined asphalt in solvent toluene produced topical skin tumours. Two cracking-residue asphalts produced skin tumours when applied to the skin of mice. A pooled mixture of steam- and air-blown petroleum asphalts in benzene produced tumours at the site of application on the skin of mice.

One sample of heated, air-refined asphalt injected subcutaneously into mice produced a few sarcomas at the injection sites. A pooled mixture of steam- and air-blown petroleum asphalts produced sarcomas at the site of subcutaneous injection in mice.

Steam-distilled asphalts injected intramuscularly produced local sarcomas in one experiment in rats. Both an extract of road-surfacing asphalt and its emissions were mutagenic to Salmonella typhimurium. Evidence for carcinogenicity to humans is not conclusive. A cohort of roofers exposed to both asphalts and coal tar pitches showed an excess risk for respiratory cancer. Likewise, two Danish studies of asphalt workers found an excess risk for lung cancer, but some of these workers may also have been exposed to coal tar, and they were more likely to be smokers than the comparison group.

Among Minnesota but not California highway workers, increases were noted for leukaemia and urological cancers. Even though the epidemiological data to date are inadequate to demonstrate with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that asphalt presents a cancer risk to humans, general agreement exists, on the basis of experimental studies, that asphalt may pose such a risk. Since heated asphalt will cause severe skin burns, those working with it should wear loose clothing in good condition, with the neck closed and the sleeves rolled down.

Hand and arm protection should be worn. Safety shoes should be about 15 cm high and laced so that no openings are left through which hot asphalt may reach the skin. Face and eye protection is also recommended when heated asphalt is handled. Changing rooms and proper washing and bathing facilities are desirable. At crushing plants where dust is produced and at boiling pans from which fumes escape, adequate exhaust ventilation should be provided. Asphalt kettles should be set securely and be levelled to preclude the possibility of their tipping.

Workers should stand upwind of a kettle. The temperature of heated asphalt should be checked frequently in order to prevent overheating and possible ignition. If the flash point is approached, the fire under a kettle must be put out at once and no open flame or other source of ignition should be permitted nearby.

Where asphalt is being heated, fire-extinguishing equipment should be within easy reach. For asphalt fires, dry chemical or carbon dioxide types of extinguishers are considered most appropriate. The asphalt spreader and the driver of an asphalt paving machine should be offered half-face respirators with organic vapour cartridges. In addition, to prevent the inadvertent swallowing of toxic materials, workers should not eat, drink or smoke near a kettle.

If molten asphalt strikes the exposed skin, it should be cooled immediately by quenching with cold water or by some other method recommended by medical advisers. An extensive burn should be covered with a sterile dressing and the patient should be taken to a hospital; minor burns should be seen by a physician.

Solvents should not be used to remove asphalt from burned flesh. No attempt should be made to remove particles of asphalt from the eyes; instead the victim should be taken to a physician at once. Class 1: Penetration bitumens are classified by their penetration value. They are usually produced from the residue from atmospheric distillation of petroleum crude oil by applying further distillation under vacuum, partial oxidation air rectification , solvent precipitation or a combination of these processes.

Class 2: Oxidized bitumens are classified by their softening points and penetration values. They are produced by passing air through hot, soft bitumen under controlled temperature conditions. This process alters the characteristics of the bitumen to give reduced temperature susceptibility and greater resistance to different types of imposed stress.

In the United States, bitumens produced using air blowing are known as air-blown asphalts or roofing asphalts and are similar to oxidized bitumens. Class 3: Cutback bitumens are produced by mixing penetration bitumens or oxidized bitumens with suitable volatile diluents from petroleum crudes such as white spirit, kerosene or gas oil, to reduce their viscosity and render them more fluid for ease of handling.

When the diluent evaporates, the initial properties of bitumen are recovered. In the United States, cutback bitumens are sometimes referred to as road oils. Class 4: Hard bitumens are normally classified by their softening point. They are manufactured similarly to penetration bitumens, but have lower penetration values and higher softening points i.

Class 5: Bitumen emulsions are fine dispersions of droplets of bitumen from classes 1, 3 or 6 in water. They are manufactured using high-speed shearing devices, such as colloid mills. They can be anionic, cationic or non-ionic. In the United States, they are referred to as emulsified asphalts.

Class 8: Thermal bitumens were produced by extended distillation, at high temperature, of a petroleum residue. Currently, they are not manufactured in Europe or in the United States. Gravel is a loose conglomerate of stones that have been mined from a surface deposit, dredged from a river bottom or obtained from a quarry and crushed into desired sizes.

Gravel has a variety of uses, including: for rail beds; in roadways, walkways and roofs; as filler in concrete often for foundations ; in landscaping and gardening; and as a filter medium. The principal safety and health hazards to those who work with gravel are airborne silica dust, musculoskeletal problems and noise.

Free crystalline silicon dioxide occurs naturally in many rocks that are used to make gravel. The silica content of bulk species of stone varies and is not a reliable indicator of the percentage of airborne silica dust in a dust sample.

Limestone and marble have less free silica. Silica can become airborne during quarrying, sawing, crushing, sizing and, to a lesser extent, spreading of gravel. Generation of airborne silica can usually be prevented with water sprays and jets, and sometimes with local exhaust ventilation LEV. In addition to construction workers, workers exposed to silica dust from gravel include quarry workers, railroad workers and landscape workers. Silicosis is more common among quarry or stone-crushing workers than among construction workers who work with gravel as a finished product.

An elevated risk of mortality from pneumoconiosis and other non-malignant respiratory disease has been observed in one cohort of workers in the crushed-stone industry in the United States. Musculoskeletal problems can occur as a result of manual loading or unloading of gravel or during manual spreading. The larger the individual pieces of stone and the larger the shovel or other tool used, the more difficult it is to manage the material with hand tools. The risk of sprains and strains can be reduced if two or more workers work together on strenuous tasks, and more so if draught animals or powered machines are used.

Smaller shovels or rakes carry or push less weight than larger ones and can reduce the risk of musculoskeletal problems. Noise accompanies mechanical processing or handling of stone or gravel. Stone crushing using a ball mill generates considerable low-frequency noise and vibration. Transporting gravel through metal chutes and mixing it in drums are both noisy processes.

Noise can be controlled by using sound-absorbing or -reflecting materials around the ball mill, by using chutes lined with wood or other sound-absorbing and durable material or by using noise-insulated mixing drums. The most common form of occupational dermatosis to be found among construction workers is caused by exposure to cement.

Two types of dermatosis are caused by exposure to cement: 1 toxic contact dermatitis, which is local irritation of skin exposed to wet cement and is caused mainly by the alkalinity of the cement; and 2 allergic contact dermatitis, which is a generalized allergic skin reaction to exposure to the water-soluble chromium compound found in most cement.

One kilogramme of normal cement dust contains 5 to 10 mg of water-soluble chromium. The chromium originates both in the raw material and the production process mainly from steel structures used in production. Allergic contact dermatitis is chronic and debilitating. If not properly treated, it can lead to decreased worker productivity and, in some cases, early retirement.

In the s and s, cement dermatitis was the most common reported cause of early retirement among construction workers in Scandinavia. Therefore, technical and hygienic procedures were undertaken to prevent cement dermatitis.

In , Danish scientists suggested that reducing hexavalent water-soluble chromium to trivalent insoluble chromium by adding ferrous sulphate during production would prevent chromium-induced dermatitis Fregert, Gruvberger and Sandahl Denmark passed legislation requiring the use of cement with lower levels of hexavalent chromium in Finland followed with a legislative decision at the beginning of , and Sweden and Germany adopted administrative decisions in and , respectively.

The Board asked the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health to monitor the incidence of occupational dermatosis among construction workers to assess the effectiveness of adding ferrous sulphate to cement in order to prevent chromium-induced dermatitis. The Institute monitored the incidence of occupational dermatitis through the Finnish Register of Occupational Diseases from through The results indicated that chromium-induced hand dermatitis practically disappeared among construction workers, whereas the incidence of toxic contact dermatitis remained unchanged during the study period Roto et al.

In Denmark, chromate sensitization from cement was detected in only one case among 4, patch tests conducted between and among patients of a large dermatological clinic, 34 of whom were construction workers. The expected number of chromate-positive construction workers was 10 of 34 subjects Zachariae, Agner and Menn J There seems to be increasing evidence that the addition of ferrous sulphate to cement prevents chromate sensitization among construction workers.

In addition, there has been no indication that, when added to cement, ferrous sulphate has negative effects on the health of exposed workers. The process is economically feasible, and the properties of the cement do not change. The reductive effect of ferrous sulphate lasts 6 months; the product must be kept dry before mixing because humidity neutralizes the effect of the ferrous sulphate. The addition of ferrous sulphate to cement does not change its alkalinity. Therefore workers should use proper skin protection.

In all circumstances, construction workers should avoid touching wet cement with unprotected skin. This precaution is especially important in initial cement production, where minor adjustments to moulded elements are made manually. Certain statistics have not been updated since the production of the 4th edition of the Encyclopaedia ASME B Personal communication. Job tasks, potential exposures, and health risks of laborers employed in the construction industry.

Am J Ind Med California Department of Health Services. California Occupational Mortality, Commission of the European Communities. Safety and Health in the Construction Sector. Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations. Fact Finding Report. Construction Safety Asociation of Ontario. Construction Safety and Health Manual. Toronto: Construction Safety Association of Canada. Council of the European Communities.

El Batawi, MA. Migrant workers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Engholm, G and A Englund. Morbidity and mortality patterns in Sweden. Occup Med: State Art Rev EN Brussels: CEN. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Helsinki: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Reduction of chromate in cement by iron sulphate. Contact Dermat Hinze, J. Indirect Costs of Construction Accidents. Health and Safety at Work: System and Statistics. Saint Augustin, Germany: Hauptverband der gewerblichen berufsgenossenschaften. Polynuclear aromatic compounds, Part 4: Bitumens, coal tars and derived products, shale oils and soots.

Lyon: IARC. Geneva: ILO. ISO Geneva: ISO. Japan Construction Safety and Health Association. Injury hazards in the construction industry. J Occup Med Occupational disease in New York State: A comprehensive reexamination. Marsh, B. Chance of getting hurt is generally far higher at smaller companies.

Wall Street J. Meridian Research. Worker Protection Programs in Construction. Oxenburg, M. Increasing Productivity and Profit through Health and Safety.

Sydney: CCH International. Fatalities in the construction industry in the United States, and Powers, MB. Cost fever breaks. Engineering News-Record Construction workers. Construction safety and health. Addition of ferrous sulfate to cement and risk of chomium dermatitis among construction workers.

Saari, J and M Nasanen. The effect of positive feedback on industrial housekeeping and accidents. Int J Ind Erg Schneider, S and P Susi. Ergonomics and construction: A review of potential in new construction. Am Ind Hyg Assoc J Noise, vibration, and heat and cold. Statistics Canada. Construction in Canada, Report Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

Chest X-ray screening improves outcome in lung cancer: A reappraisal of randomized trials on lung cancer screening. Chest Toscano, G and J Windau.

The changing character of fatal work injuries. Monthly Labor Review Workplace Hazard and Tobacco Education Project. Chromium allergy in consecutive patients in a country where ferrous sulfate has been added to cement since Construction Construction Tools, Equipment and Materials. Tools, Equipment and Materials.

Published in Tools, Equipment and Materials. Read more Innovations in equipment, machinery and materials can be expected to continue to appear.

Scaffolding One of the types of construction equipment that frequently affects worker safety is scaffolding, the primary means of providing a work surface at elevations. Types of scaffolds Support scaffolds may be erected using vertical and horizontal tubing connected by loose couplers. Vertical adjustment of the scaffold The working planes of a scaffold are normally stationary. Erection of prefabricated facade scaffolds The erection of prefabricated facade scaffolds should follow the following guidelines: Detailed erection instructions should be provided by the manufacturer and kept at the building site, and the work should be supervised by trained personnel.

Precautions should be taken to protect anyone walking under the scaffold by blocking off the area, erecting additional scaffolding for the pedestrians to walk under or creating a protective overhang. The base of the scaffold should be placed on a firm, level surface.

An adjustable steel base plate should be placed on planking or boards to create a sufficient surface area for weight distribution. A scaffold that is more than 2 to 3. To move tools and supplies on or off the platform, the smallest possible opening in the guard rail may be created with a foot stop and guard rail on either side of it.

Access to the scaffold should normally be provided by stairs and not ladders. The scaffold should be as close as possible to the facade of the building; if more than mm, a second guard rail on the inside of the platform may be needed. If planks are used for the platform, they must be secured to the scaffold structure. A forthcoming European standard stipulates that the deflection bending should be not more than 25 mm.

Earth-moving machinery Earth-moving machinery is designed primarily to loosen, pick up, move, transport and distribute or grade rock or earth and is of great importance in construction, road-building and agricultural and industrial work see figure 1.

Figure 1.