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INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Vol. 17, No. 12
Accident Records and H o w to Keep Them' By C. B. Auela WltSTINQHOUSSELIECTRIC & MANURACTURINQ CO.,
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N KEEPING accident records it is absolutely essential to have all facts connected with each accident from the causes leading up to it until the case may be considered closed. In the event of a serious accident it is highly advisable to secure the facts from a number of sources, as the differing points of view may prove exceedingly valuable. Photographs of the scene of the accident and X-rays of the injured part are also recommended. Notwithstanding the fact that the majority of accidents occurring in a plant may be of a minor or non-disabling character, such as cuts which require nothing more than a bandaging, the medical department should keep a daily record of all cases reported to it, including calls for redressings. This record should embrace the employee's name, check, part injured, notation as to whether or not employee was instructed to continue a t work or to call again, etc. As nearly all the states now have compensation laws and require fairly comprehensive reports of accidents involving disability over a given short period, such accident reports may be taken as the accident record, being amplified if desired for one's own records, as already indicated.
increases, the accident prevention work may be considered as retrograding and vice versa. But there is still another record which must be kept to make the story complete, and that is the amount of time lost due to accidents per hour worked, or the equivalent. It is easily found by dividing the total days lost due to accidents in any given period by the total hours worked by all employees during the same period. But as this would make, as in the case of accident frequency, rather too small a decimal, it is multiplied by 1000 and the result is the number of days lost per 1000 hours worked, or per 1000 hours exposure, or again more briefly, if not so simply, the accident severity, this being the third necessary record. Interpretation of Records
These methods have been adopted by the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions, by the National Safety Council, and by statisticians generally, and when it is desired to compare one industry with another, or one plant with another, or to compute accident ratings Personal Injury Report
Necessary Records
Although no set rules for the building up of accident statistics can be formulated which will apply equally well to all plants, there are, however, several records which must be maintained if an intelligent study is to be made of accidents, their causes, and prevention. These are* (a) the number of accidents; (b) accident frequency; ( c ) accident severity; and (d) causes of accidents. The first of these is simply a record of the number of accidents occurring day by day, week by week, month by month, or year by year, which involve lost time to any extent beyond the day or the shift. These can, of course, be subdivided in a number of ways, as to men, women, and minors, by departments, shifts, etc. But the number of accidents will not of itself be of much use unless there is kept a t the same time a record of the total hours worked by all employees in the plant-not alone so-called production workers but expense workers as well, and in fact all workers, including foremen, clerks, etc., subject to accident hazard. This total is called man-hours or hours of exposure, the last meaning exposure to accident hazard. Of course, if the accidents are separated as to men and women, or by departments, etc., the total hours worked must be similarly separated. With these two records-namely, the number of accidents occurring in any given length of time and the total hours worked by all employees during the same period-a computation can readily be made of the number of accidents per hour worked, by dividing the number of accidents by the total hours worked. This, however, would make an extremely small decimal, so it is multiplied by 1,000,000 and the result is the number of accidents per 1,000,000 hours worked or per 1,000,000 hours exposure; or more briefly, if not more simply, the accident frequency, this being the second necessary record. If the accident frequency increases, for example, in the subsequknt, corresponding period, that is, if the number of accidents per 1,000,000 hours worked 1 2
Received April 23, 1925. (Abstract of original paper.) Vice President, National Safety Council.
EASTP I T T S B U R G E , P A .
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1. Name and residence of person injured.. 2. 3. 4. 5.
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7. 8.
Age and occupation.. Married or single.. . . . . .If married, names of wife or widow and children. Employee, passenger, or neither. . I f employee, how long in service of company, and in what capacity.. State nature and extent of injuries as fully as possible.. A. What was done with and for the person, and by whose authority?. B. If not sent t o the hospital, why not?. C. Name of physician who rendered first attention?. D. Who authorized such attention?. E. If living, state prospect of recovery. F. If dead, state disposition of remains (attach copy of verdict of coroner's jury, if inquest was held). Give date, hour, and place of accldent.. Condition of weather.. Give Train No. ............ .Engine No.. .Speed. name of conductor.. ', ', engineer. ', ' I tireman.. ', baggageman '' I' brakeman If injured between cars, give numbers and initials of such cars.. Were there any defects in cars, engine, tracks, tools, or machinery involved in the accident? If so, what?. When, and by whom inspected after accident. Where were you at time of accident; your exact position desired. Give full particulars of cause of accident. What did injured person say was the cause of the accident and the extent of his injuries?. ................................. State what precautions (if any) were taken by those in charge of train or engine to prevent the accident What, if any, signal by bell or whistle was g' ent and where was the engine at that to the place of accident?... . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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they meet the needs admirably. However, there is an objection to their use inside a plant in that these terms are not easily understood by the average worker. How many of us gather very much of an idea as to the comparative records of two plants, whose accident frequencies are said to be 5.65 and 6.101 Even when the further explanation is made that this means the number of accidents per 1,000,000hours worked, it does not convey a whole lot more to us.
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
December, 1925
In our own works, therefore, we have felt it better to use, instead, the total hours worked per accident; and if we say that in a certain department there has been one accident per month for every 21,600 hours worked, or, since the fulltime man averages 206 working hours per month, that one man out of approximately every one hundred gets hurt each month, it is something they can grasp. Similarly, we use the average actual hours lost per accident as a measure of accident severity, and it is quite evident the workers will the more readily understand when we say the fellows hurt last year were "knocked out" for 72 hours each or an average of a week and a half, than they will if we tell them their severity rate is 0.27 as compared with 0.29 last year. How Fatal Accidents and Permanent Disability are Reckoned
If in your plant you had among the accidents one fatality, how would you take it into account in estimating the severity?
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Or, if an accident resulted in permanent total or permanent partial disability, how would it be included? A careful study of these matters by the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions has led them to establish a scale of time losses or disability ratings varying with the degree of disability, death, or permanent disability, representing a time loss of 6000 days. Accordingly, if in figuring your accident severity rate for any given period you had twenty nonfatal accidents with a total loss in time of 100 days and, in addition, one fatal accident, you would have to consider your accidents as 21 with a total loss of 6100 days. . Similarly, if an accident resulted in permanent total disability, the amount of the loss would be the same. Still further, if an accident produced permanent partial disability, as the dismemberment of an arm above the elbow, or the permanent disability of any one finger, the losses would be 4500 or 300 days, respectively.
Effect of Yellow and Brown Iron Oxide Pigments upon Rate of Oxidation of Linseed Oil' By F. H. Rhodes and J. D. Cooper, Jr. CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y.
HE effect of certain of the red iron oxide pigments upon the rate of oxidation of linseed oil has been studied by Rhodes, Burr, and Webster.2 The investigation described in the present article was undertaken for the purpose of obtaining corresponding data in regard to the effects of the ochers, siennas, umbers, and metallic browns.
T
Ochers tend first to retard and then to accelerate the drying of the oil. The initial retardation is caused by the adsorption of the drier from the oil, the final acceleration is due to the formation of iron soaps which act as catalysts. The iron oxide in a n ocher reacts less readily with the drying oil than does the ferric oxide in a red iron oxide pigment. Siennas and umbers show less effect on the initial rate of oxidation of the oil than does ocher because the removal of the lead drier is compensated by the formation of a small amount of manganese drier.
Procedure
The amaratus used and the vrocedure followed in determining &e rate of oxidation of ehe oil were similar to those described by Rhodes and Van Wirta8 Two parts by weight of the pigment to be studied were mixed with three parts of the vehicle and the mixture was ground to a smooth paint. The vehicle used in each case consisted of raw linseed oil in which had been dissolved sufficient lead linoleate drier to contain an amount of lead equivalent to 0.2 per cent by weight of the oil. Each paint was allowed to age in a sealed container for a t least 2 weeks before being tested. Weighted samples of the paint were then exposed to an atmosphere of pure oxygen at 30" C., and the rate of absorption of oxygen and the rate of evolution of volatile matter were measured. The rate of oxidation of the vehicle alone was determined in a similar manner. In each case a t least two parallel determinations were made with each paint. The individual determinations gave results which agree with each other within the limits of experimental error. Received June 16, 1925. THIS JOURNAL, 16,960 (1924). * I b i d . , 16, 1135 (1923). 1 2
Materials
The linseed oil used in this work was pure refined linseed oil from North American seed. It showed the following analysis: Specificgravityat 15.5" C. 0.939 Refractive index at 25' C. 1.4788 0.452 Acid number Saponification number 195.3 Iodine number 170.5
The analyses of the pigmenits used are shown by Table I. Table I-Analyses of Pigments PIQIBNT Si02 White ocher 61.86 French ocher 53.77 Domestic ocher 46.72 Raw sienna 43.98 Burnt Italian sienna 19.40 Burnt American umber 20.14 Burnt Turkey umber 17.58 Metallic brown 14.15 Metallic brown 30.23
FeaOa AlzOa CaO
4.72 18.86 22.79 34.22 69.90 54.14 52.04 75.50 51.33
Combined Free MnO COI. H10 _.HzO ~
0.00 8.72 0.05 0.10 9.54 0.23 0.02 10.68 0.47 0.60 0.44 6.68 1.01 - 0.50 0.08 6.00 1.54 4.72 0.34 8.21 1.87 - 10.63 - 0.03 6.75 0.52 - 0.03 1.83 0.66
24.50 17.95 18.79 12.30 0.69 3.55 9.41 1.27 12.36 6.10 7.89 1.32
0.30 7.81 1.10
Results
The results are shown graphically by the accompanying curves, in which the amounts of oxygen absorbed and the amounts of volatile matter evolved (each expressed in terms of percentage by weight of the oil in the paint) are plotted against the lengths of time of exposure. For each pigment there is plotted only one curve, depicting the average results of two or more check determinations. On each diagram the graphs for the rate of absorption of oxygen and the rate of evolution of volatile matter for the vehicle alone are shown for purposes of comparison. OCHERS (Figure 1)-Each of the ochers tested shows a marked effect in retarding the initial rate of oxidation of
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