Research and Development Office

Anchoring to Vehicles to Enhance Rope Access Team Safety

Project ID: 6
Principal Investigator: Shaun Reed
Research Topic: Public and Employee Safety
Funded Fiscal Years: 2016 and 2017
Keywords: None

Research Question

Can vehicles be used as part of the rope teams anchoring options? What are the dynamic variables to be considered? Type of surface, etc? Can standard test protocols be developed to ensure proper safety? What types vehicles can be used safely?

Need and Benefit

Inaccessible features in Reclamation has long been an issue. Since the radial gate failure at Folsom Dam in 1995, modern rope access techniques have been implemented to gain access to previously inaccessible features by means of a two-rope system. The backbone of a successful rope access system is in the anchorage, which can also bring about the most concern. An anchorage is only as good as to that which it is attached.Reclamation has also performed static pull testing of vehicles on different surfaces. The primary goal of the proposed research project is to build upon past research by performing dynamic drop tests on vehicles. National fall protection anchor standards such as the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) Z359 have been emphasizing dynamic drop testing on fall protection and rope access equipment including anchors in the last several years. However, vehicle anchors are not sufficiently addressed in the standard. The proposed research strives to correlate vehicle drop testing with existing standards, foreign and domestic, to create Reclamation's "best practices" for using vehicles as rope access anchors.

Dynamic variables:
Different vehicles specifically looking at vehicle weight;
Type of surface
Static vs. Dynamic testing
Comparison to existing standards (international and domestic)
Shaun

Contributing Partners

Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.

Research Products

Bureau of Reclamation Review

The following documents were reviewed by experts in fields relating to this project's study and findings. The results were determined to be achieved using valid means.

Anchoring to Vehicles to Enhance Rope Access Team Safety (final, PDF, 1.2MB)
By Shaun Reed, David Tordonato,
Research Product completed on September 30, 2017

Anchoring to Vehicles to Enhance Rope Access Team Safety (final, PDF, 1.2MB)
By Shaun Reed, David Tordonato,
Research Product completed on September 30, 2017

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