Safety and Health at Work Vol. 10 Issue 3 2019
In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users With Facial Hair (Original Article)
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Title
Safety and Health at Work Vol. 10 Issue 3 2019
In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users With Facial Hair (Original Article)
In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users With Facial Hair (Original Article)
Subject
Facepiece design facial hair, Respirator design facial hair, RPE design facial hair
Description
Background: Air-purifying, tight-fitting facepieces are examples of respiratory protective equipment and are worn to protect workers from potentially harmful particulate and vapors. Research shows that the presence of facial hair on users’ face significantly reduces the efficacy of these devices. This article sets out to establish if an acceptable seal could be achieved between facial hair and the facepiece. The team also created and investigated a low-cost “pressure testing” method for assessing the efficacy of a seal to be used during the early design process for a facepiece designed to overcome the facial hair issue.
Methods: Nine new designs for face mask seals were prototyped as flat samples. A researcher developed a test rig, and a test protocol was used to evaluate the efficacy of the new seal designs against facial hair. Six of the seal designs were also tested using a version of the conventional fit test. The results were compared with those of the researcher-developed test to look for a correlation between the two test methods.
Results: None of the seals performed any better against facial hair than a typical, commercially available facepiece. The pressure testing method devised by the researchers performed well but was not as robust as the fit factor testing.
Conclusion: The results show that sealing against facial hair is extremely problematic unless an excessive force is applied to the facepiece’s seal area pushing it against the face. The means of pressure testing devised by the researchers could be seen as a low-cost technique to be used at the early stages of a the design process, before fit testing is viable.
Methods: Nine new designs for face mask seals were prototyped as flat samples. A researcher developed a test rig, and a test protocol was used to evaluate the efficacy of the new seal designs against facial hair. Six of the seal designs were also tested using a version of the conventional fit test. The results were compared with those of the researcher-developed test to look for a correlation between the two test methods.
Results: None of the seals performed any better against facial hair than a typical, commercially available facepiece. The pressure testing method devised by the researchers performed well but was not as robust as the fit factor testing.
Conclusion: The results show that sealing against facial hair is extremely problematic unless an excessive force is applied to the facepiece’s seal area pushing it against the face. The means of pressure testing devised by the researchers could be seen as a low-cost technique to be used at the early stages of a the design process, before fit testing is viable.
Creator
James Meadwell, Lee Paxman-Clarke, David Terris , Peter Ford
Publisher
Elsevier Korea LLC
Date
September 2019
Contributor
Sri Wahyuni
Format
PDF
Language
English
Type
Text
Coverage
Safety and Health at Work Vol. 10 Issue 3 2019
Files
Citation
James Meadwell, Lee Paxman-Clarke, David Terris , Peter Ford, “Safety and Health at Work Vol. 10 Issue 3 2019
In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users With Facial Hair (Original Article),” Repository Horizon University Indonesia, accessed November 21, 2024, https://repository.horizon.ac.id/items/show/1940.
In Search of a Performing Seal: Rethinking the Design of Tight-Fitting Respiratory Protective Equipment Facepieces for Users With Facial Hair (Original Article),” Repository Horizon University Indonesia, accessed November 21, 2024, https://repository.horizon.ac.id/items/show/1940.