Things to know about occupational safety in steel fabricating

Occupation safety in rebar processing is a significantly important factor in the steel pre-engineered building process.  The below writing shall provide necessary details about this.

1. National regulations on occupational safety in rebar processing

Regulations on Steel fabricating and erecting are mentioned in Regulation No. QCVN 18: 2014/BXD, National Regulation on Occupational Safety in Construction QCVN 18: 2014/BXD enacted by the Ministry of Construction along with Circular No. 14/2014/TT-BXD passed on September 5th, 2014, by the Prime Minister of the Ministry of Construction.

Regulation No. QCVN 18: 2014/BXD includes residence construction, industry, and technical infrastructure (construction facilities) safety requirements. Regulations on occupational safety and technical safety strictly follow current regulations enacted by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs.

Regulation No. QCVN 18: 2014/BXD is implemented for organizations and individuals working on construction projects and occupational safety in construction.

2. Potential risks causing occupational accidents in steel fabricating

• Iron dust and rust harm workers’ eyes during the working process.

• Workers’ hands being winded or clamped into rebar cutting or bending machines. Rebar being processed or electrical shock harming workers due to poor machinery conditions such as damaged or unsafe devices or no electric insulation system.
• Rebars either being broken or slipped during tensioning, pulling, cutting, or bending process splashing on workers, causing serious damage, especially when into the face part of workers.
• Workers’ hands are hit and harmed by a hammer during the process of manually cutting rebar due to inaccurate hitting or due to broken hammer shaft, or the hammer slipping out of the handle.
• Bending table tipping over or support pin being knocked out, causing workers to lose control and falling over and harmed by rebars while bending the reinforcement process.

3. Solutions to ensure occupational safety during steel fabricating

• Workers must strictly follow regulations on occupational safety when using equipment and machines to fabricate steel.
• The quality control team must inspect the quality of machinery before operating.
• Workers must clean all metal dust and flakes generated during the rusting and bending process with the suction pump or cleaning brush. It is forbidden for them to clean the dust directly by hand, even when wearing gloves.
• Workers must put on protective goggles and gloves during their working process to prevent iron dust and flakes from splashing into and harming the eyes.
• When using mechanical cutting machines, workers are not allowed to cut reinforcement sections that are shorter than 30 centimeters if there are no protective items.
• When using bending machines, workers can only remove the position, insert reinforcement, reset pins, and clamp on the machine when the disk does not rotate.
• The factory must attach the electricity system with insulator materials to prevent leakage.
• The factory also needs to arrange the fabricated rebars and place them correctly.
• The factory must have tension measuring equipment or use a balanced load method to measure the tension to prevent breaking reinforcement during the pulling process.
• Workers need to use clamping tools to combine the reinforcement with the traction cable to prevent slipping. It is not allowed to use the fastening method.
• When stretching rebars, workers are not allowed to stand near the reinforcement to avoid being harmed by broken and slipping steel rebars. This working area must include barriers to stop intruders. Only when steel rebars are straightened and gradually tension reduces are workers allowed to approach the area,  detach the combination and take straightened rebars out of there.

We hope that this writing has been helpful for you when finding information about occupational safety in rebar processing. Visit our website at BMB Steel for more information about steel structures and pre-engineered steel building contractors.