Arm amputation on a coating drum

A 36 year old employee lost his right arm at the shearing point between the drum´s lower edge and the reversing shovel (see red circle) when taking an unauthorized sample from a running coating machine. This machine consisted of several coating drums in series with one drum coating an individual basic product. In the next stage, the content of one drum is transported in reversing mode into the next drum.

Accident cause

The machine´s protective equipment was defeated in such a way that it could run despite an open guard. To achieve this, the mounting of the interlocking switch (green circle)for the big front screen had been cut off.

Reasons for defeating protective equipment …

Due to persisting problems regarding coating quality and the necessity to constantly adapt the operating parameters to the critical product, frequent intervention is necessary.

… to be eliminated in the run-up

If consideration of critical products and possible fault sources had been taken into account already at the machine´s design stage, both an optimized sampling procedure and reduction of necessary intervention would have been possible. Here, it becomes obvious that it is possible to reduce potential hazards if user and manufacturer co-operate in the run-up.