Machinery Guards
Description
Machinery guards are safety devices that act as a physical barrier between the operator and sensitive parts of the machine. They provide protection against rotating machine parts, cutting teeth, moving belts, reciprocating arms, meshing gears and from other shears or impacts. The important functions of machinery guards are to protect the operator from any sharp edges or moving parts of machines, to lock firmly on the machine, to prevent foreign particles getting into the machine and not to create new hazards by adding sharp corners that the operator should avoid. These comprise of safety control trips, presence sensing devices and electromechanical sensing devices to initiate a machine operating cycle only when they are safe to do so. Machinery guards remain in its place. The machine guards protecting the point of operation is brightly colored to give operators a visual warning so as to spot missing guards. Machine guards are manufactured from metal, plastic and wood. The occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) insist on machine guards especially those with process that can injure the operator.
Types
Basically machinery guards are classified as:
Fixed machinery guards
Interlocked machinery guards
Adjustable machinery guards
Self adjusting machinery guards
Advantages
The following are few advantages of using machinery guards:
Machinery guards protect workers from being injured through contact with machines in an industry
Fixed machinery guards require less maintenance, ideal for repetitive and high productive operations
An interlocked machinery guard provides maximum protection and allows access to the machines for maintenance and other minor repairs without having to remove fixed guards
Applications
Machinery guards are essential for any work place using machinery. Machinery safety guards are imperative to all types of fields such as construction, ware housing, packaging, health care, biomedical or pharmaceutical, industries and manufacturing units. Machinery guards are employed in machines such as lathes, drills, robots, grinders, mills, band saws, riveters and welder.