While operating lifting machinery, personnel must prioritize safety, yet accidents can still occur. What are the underlying causes? Three primary factors come into play: operational inefficiencies, equipment malfunctions, and environmental conditions.
Operational factors:
(1) Inappropriate lifting methods, including weak lifting chain bindings due to decoupling, resulting in scattered or swinging loads that can cause injury.
(2) Violations of lifting procedures, such as lifting blocks and other unauthorized practices, including overloading, which can endanger personnel in hazardous areas, lead to equipment damage, and trigger accidents like overloading, over-hoisting, derailing, and tipping when operators disregard weight limits, safety limits, brakes, or proper homing and anchoring procedures.
(3) Collisions stemming from improper commands or uncoordinated actions.
Equipment factors:
(1) sling malfunctions, encompassing hook, grab, wire rope, net, and other damages resulting from falling heavy objects;
(2) accidents stemming from failures in the lifting equipment’s control system or safety device, including brake malfunction, as well as heavy object impact and squeezing;
(3) accidents due to insufficient component strength, for instance, when the overturning moment of a tower crane’s Ao exceeds its stabilizing moment, causing it to topple;
(4) electric shock resulting from electrical damage;
(5) derailment accidents triggered by rail gnawing, excessive wear, or bending of bridge lifting machinery.
Environmental factors:
(1) equipment accidents such as derailment, collapse, tipping, and others, resulting from severe natural disasters like lightning, gusts, tornadoes, typhoons, and earthquakes;
(2) collision and extrusion accidents triggered by overcrowded and chaotic venues.
