A REVIEW OF MACHINE-GUARDING RECOMMENDATIONS

A series of machine-guarding drawings were developed during the 1940s, which represent the relationship between gap size and safe distance. Since the development of these drawings, larger and more comprehensive anthropometric surveys have been conducted, but they have never been compared with the drawings. The purpose of this investigation was to d etermine whether these original recommendations presented in the drawi ngs are still consistent with data in the larger anthropometric survey s, especially relating to women and minorities, who are now much more prevalent in the American workplace. In this study, data from six anth ropometric surveys were compared with the original machine-guarding re commendations. To minimize the percentage of the population at risk, t he length dimensions were chosen from the 99th percentile male populat ion, and thickness dimensions were chosen from the 1st percentile fema le population. Many of these recommendations were found to be valid, a lthough several important modifications were suggested. Several curren tly recommended dimensions show no correlation to the incompressible j oints utilized in this study, and it is recommended that they be elimi nated. The recommendations are presented in tables of maximum gap size and minimum distance.