SMA-HQ-WBT-209 Crane Safety
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SMA-HQ-WBT-209 Crane Safety
So, this presentation is put together by someone else. It repeats. It has lots of little slide transitions that I kind of skip over some of that kind of stuff. I'll let you all know of that ahead of time. Once again, to a rigger, a refresher class. We're going to cover the NASA Standards 8719 lift standard, going through all that stuff there and we're go over it, word for word you all can all read.
Establishes the minimum safety requirements. You can't go above and beyond. NASA does that on some things. But the NASA policy is not a substitute for OSHA. OSHA does overrule. You have to follow that. If the two conflict, then OSHA would take precedence. We can do waivers and do variances for the NASA standard but we can't do that for OSHA. We don't have that authority.
Review the NASA standard 8719.9. I heard some of you have mentioned critical list, non-critical. That definition has changed to the new NASA Lift Standard. Now, not all flight items are considered critical. If it's a small little satellite or something, they're doing 14, they lift up on the antenna arms and it's a-- it may be a flight item but it's not something that have a huge mission impact, then they may not consider that a critical lift. Airplane tires at one point, some people would consider that because it's a flight item all sorts of tire for airplane at Ellington. So some things that are flied aren't necessarily critical lift anymore. So they have changed that category. And non-critical is pretty much everything else. One of the things that wasn't mentioned in the NASA Lift Standard was 75% of mobile crane rated load is also a critical lift. Of course, all these other things were on there so the definition has changes a little bit. The whole standard itself has also changed as far as the layout. It used to be 13 chapters now there's 14 or 15. It's been out for a few months now, probably six months or so. So go back, refamiliarize your self with it. Rigging chapter was Chapter 10, that's moved. Mobile cranes, overhead cranes as well moved. Reword-- A lot of it stayed the same. There are very few differences. It's more of an organizational type thing. Putting more references back to OSHA. Then here's the OSHA Standard.
And we don't do that very often, lifting people. I can think of just a couple times we've done that out here but generally, you don't do that out here. To do critical lifts, of course, you have additional safe guards. Each crane has an extra holding break, extra limit switches. I believe all the cranes out here now are marked as critical lift or non-critical lift as a finding from the IFO audit few years back. So, if they're not labeled as critical lift, then don't do those with that crane. And then, we just covered the non critical. And fly hardware packaged in a shipping container. So, you know, we do lift fly hardware as long as it's packaged correctly, you don't have to consider that a critical lift. That's something that's different from the last standard. That has changed. All right. General operating procedures, make sure you're doing a lift that you know what to do if something fails or something isn't going right. Who's communicating, who's your signal person, who's pushing the buttons, who's your rigger, who's your [inaudible] who's the guy in the load. Make sure it's all spelled out. You know who's doing that. That would be also the JSC form 941 is the JSC lift plan that is-- has been required or recommended for a while. Now, it is actually required for the JSC lifting document. So that 941 form, make sure that is done, that spells out all these different roles and all different rigging that you've actually done on the item. And it also has your inspection's check list on it. Every lifting operations should have an HA. Make sure you have reviewed that with your organization. Each one maybe a little bit different. But go back and review that, it's going to do that every year. Generally, like safety and health days, something like that where we go back and review all the HAs. Generally, you should have your-- know what's going to happen if-- you shouldn't drop a load but if the crane fails, crane stops working, know who to contact, go through emergency procedures for crane. Each crane will be stamped with its working load or working load limit is more what they use. You'd never exceed that amount. I'm sure, of course, all of you all know that. This is all refresher still. Should not be loaded beyond that amount. So far as load testing, every crane gets load tested but not every crane could do load testing. As far as on sling, shackles anything else like that, you're not supposed to use cranes to do that unless they're identified for it. Each crane itself though will be load tested. That's done usually annual or every four years by the JSC rigging group. So, each crane will have a little brass tag on it. I thought I had a piece of rigging up here that had one but I'm not seeing that right now, because all these are old rigging. So I hope they wouldn't have one of this sort of-- that would be current. Never pull from the side. Pretty self-explanatory there. The crane is not ready for it. You pull the rope off the drum at the top, and sound effect. Make sure you're still paying attention. Pre operational checks on the crane. Operator performs these daily. Basically, the things you're going to be looking for, you're going to test your upper limit switches. You want to run the crane up to that in a slow manner, make sure it shuts off the crane. Same thing if you have lower limit switches, I know NBL [assumed spelling] may have some of those because there's in the pool. Your speed trap, your speed controls make sure those both work correctly. Test your holding breaks. The little wire rope, make sure there's no wire rope damage. Pay special attention where it goes around the shifts actually on the hook because that sees a lot of [inaudible] at that that level. So look at that, make sure it's not warm beyond 5% of its-- what it's supposed to be. If it is, that whole wire rope has to be replaced or that-- at least that section depending on how long your wire rope is and where it is. Those are the things that you all look for before that and make sure the E stop works. Make sure it's got the north, east, south, west on the top of the bridge so that you now communicating with your rigger or signal person they know exactly which direction are we traveling. And then you set up your safety zones and barriers anywhere you're going to be lifting. Make sure it's barricaded off with red barricade tape. I recommend red because most-- some people will go through yellow barricade tape they see it as a caution. Red is a do not enter type mentality.
Coned off or the spotters, something like that would be fine too as long as there's an active-- that would be more of an active method to make sure nobody enters this rigging area. Anybody inside that area should have the proper PPE which would be your hard hat, your steel-toed boots at a minimum. So some people require vest, gloves, safety glasses because that's considered a work area. That's all up to your individual contractor or your company as to they require some additional things beyond what OSHA requires, which is the hard hat or the steel-toed boots.
I just covered all that stuff but there it is actually written out.
Look at the hoist rope, talk about it being a nominal size not ever this diameter or anything. Also kinked, we'll go over that when we talk about wire rope rigging. The same kind of applies to the actual hoist ropes as far as kinking, crashing, bird caging, heat damage anything like that, we'll go over. So, as far as testing the holding break, know your weight and load, pick up basically your load likely will pick it up, hold it for just a minute and make sure your holding breaks are good before they continue on with the lift. If you're using radios, make sure they work. Make sure there's no interference. And your hand signals, it says conspicuously posted as long as everybody knows them, that's the key. I don't care if-- as long as you two are on the same page as far as what a lift-- what a signal means, that's what really matters on it as far as the safety goes. For some people, this is line up and most people that's line up. If your line up is doing this, as long as your operator knows what you're doing and what you want, that's the important part. So make sure you all are in the same page. Oh blank slide.
Video. You got basically this crane here is lifting the end of this boom.
Fifteen minutes.
None of them. Seven. Seven since they started moving it.
This crane is lifting this one. You got a [inaudible] pulled by this crane and you have that to be pulled by this crane. Here's your hoist drum, the brake's tail here. And [inaudible] starts moving.
And you see the brakes explode.
That's now testing your holding breaks. The holding breaks failed, there's the result. All right. Let's go back to where we were, hand signals. Everybody knows what's basically line up? So this is where you all get to participate, make sure you're still awake. Line up signal. So, few people know it. All right. Line down is the exact opposite. Travel east. As long as you all-- As long as you're on the same page as your operator. Some people do this, some do that. As long as you're on the same page. I don't think he's doing this. I think he's doing that. I think you all know what that means. It's pretty universal. I don't know that we do a whole lot of two-hoist lifts so this wouldn't really apply a lot. This tells you which hoist to use. What does that signal? Doing this? Blow up. All right. I think we've basically covered this. Any crane operations are considered hazardous operations. There should be an HA for that. And that's why it has to cover these various items. When doing your inspection, rope on the [inaudible] to the top or on the drum. Make sure it doesn't skip. Make sure it's lined up exactly like it used to be, that's part of your daily inspection. And it's properly seated. When you're operating, avoid sudden shocks or stops. And with electric-- with the overhead cranes that we've got, something else to keep in mind, a lot of people don't think about is if something gets stuck, a lot of people will try to bump the crane up a little bit. With these overhead cranes, there's no flex really in the bridge. So, when-- if something was to get hung and you try to just draw the crane a little bit, just put a little pressure on it to help move this, if it's a 20-ton crane you're instantly putting 20 tons on to that item, it's going to make it fail if it's not ready for that. I've seen that happened over in building 14 on the strong back with a little bolt there. They thought they can use the crane to get this thing to start sliding. It was tight, instantly hitting up on it, broke the bolt, had a little mishap investigation on it. With overhead cranes there is no-- let's apply a little bit of tension to it. It's either all or nothing really on these electric cranes. On a mobile crane or something hydraulic--hydraulicking fender a little bit, start adding a little bit of pressure. Electric, that doesn't happen, make sure you're on or off. So keep that in mind if something does get stuck release the tension, try to figure out what's going wrong before you continue to lift. Now, being in the construction area here. Securing loads, your center of gravity may-- try to make it below you attachments points for your rigging. It makes for a much more stable load. Most items I see lifted out here with every flight items of course anything else you all do, most of your attachment points are above the center of gravity. They're going to be on like four corners, three corners lifted on two ends, your center of gravity is even with it. The risk you've got is-- when the center of gravity is located above your attachment points, if you start swinging, that center of gravity gets outside one of those then you're going to flip your load off. So make-- The way to avoid that is the center of gravity below those and it's always going to be stable. It may shift and move a little bit to move the center of gravity underneath the hook but it's not going to inadvertently just flip over. So secured balance control, use tag lines always. And one of the things I see a lot out here that kind of gets to me is when there's a tag line on the load, the load is up at 8 feet high, there's no need to walk underneath it to go get the tag line. Let the load come down to waist level because until it gets to that point, the cranes moving around anyway. You're not going to do a whole lot with that tag line. A tag line is to keep it from spinning. If you want the load to come over here, have the crane operator move it over there before you go get underneath the load and get close to it because those things do inadvertently fail, it does happen. Generally, I hope our stuff out here is in good enough condition that doesn't happen. But, you know, there's no need to be underneath the load or get that close to it until it's at an area you can handle it. This is more just for MBL as far as leaving-- make sure there's two wraps of wire rope on the drum because [inaudible] down below, down in the pool, down below deck level. Not a whole lot of placed on site I think that have that issue. Responsible person is ultimately the person pushing the controls. They're the one directing. They needed to know when to stop. They're the ones responsible for the whole operation. If it's not safe, stop.
I haven't-- I don't know that I've ever seen anybody out here have to change controls, change operators. If so, there should be a procedure in place to make sure as always, the operator has controls.