The necessary fall zone has to be taken into consideration while working with fall protection equipment, regardless of the situation.
Goal:
Impact during an accidental fall must be prevented!
The required fall zone can have a radius between .5 and 10 meters, depending on the system components and placement of the anchors.
The important factors are:
- Placement of the anchors (directly above the worker, and above head height wherever possible)
- Total length of the ropes
- Dynamic stretching of the ropes.
For example: the dynamic pull of a EN1891 rope is 5%!
A wet rope can stretch up to 1.5x more than a dry rope! - Extension of shock absorbers
= the effective, fall dependent, extension length
→ A lower fall height will only extend the absorber a fraction of the distance
→A specialist should be able to calculate the correct extension length - Stretching of the harness
- Distance between the attachment point on the harness and the workers shoes
- A safety reserve of 1m