Industrial rope access

Rope access is a form of work positioning, initially developed from techniques used in climbing and caving, which applies practical ropework to allow workers to access difficult-to-reach locations without the use of scaffolding, cradles or an aerial work platform. Rope access technicians descend, ascend, and traverse ropes for access and work while suspended by their harness. Sometimes a work seat may be used. The support of the rope is intended to eliminate the likelihood of a fall altogether, but a back-up fall arrest system is used in case of the unlikely failure of the primary means of support. This redundancy system is usually achieved by using two ropes - a working line and a safety line.

The most common applications for modern rope access include inspection, surveying, maintenance, and construction on bridges, dams, wind turbines, towers, buildings, and industrial plants. While inspection is the most common application, painting, welding, cutting and heavy material handling can be accomplished by rope access professionals using specialised procedures. The industry adheres to safety characteristics including:

Trade associations such as IRATA have mandatory policies where member companies must submit all accident, incident and near miss occurrences to permit evaluation and comparison of information from an entire industry. This highlights any trends in incidents and assists in the evolution of equipment and procedures allowing continuing improvement to work practices. The above techniques along with the trade association’s organic approach has meant very few accidents since the beginning of this activity around the 1980s.

Typical applications include:

Typical equipment includes:

Climbing helmet, a piece of safety equipment that primarily protects the skull against falling debris. As rope access is an industrial application, helmets are mandatory as they would be on a construction site. A head injury causing the victim to become unconscious introduces the risk of orthostatic hypotension through the restriction of blood flow caused by the victim’s own unsupported weight in the harness.

Sit harness, consisting of a waist belt and two leg loops which are normally connected in the front of the hips through a permanent webbing loop.

Chest harness, worn around the shoulders, usually with a sit harness so as to provide an additional attachment point farther up the body. This attachment point allows for better balance in some situations, such as when carrying a heavy pack (as the centre of mass is below the connection to the rope) and when the person in the harness may be unable to maintain an upright position (due to injury or other influences).

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Wikipedia