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Health See other Health Articles Title: Germans developing trousers to stop chainsaws from causing injury Techno trousers get smart enough to switch off chainsaw in emergency German researchers are field-testing smart trousers which they hope can reduce the risk of chainsaw injuries by being able to tell when a saw is getting too close – and switching it off. Michael Dumiak reports. The average cut from a chainsaw is deep, ragged and takes 110 stitches to close: currently the protective trousers to save legs from such injuries are heavy and hot, making tree work uncomfortable and difficult. Researchers at the Hohenstein Institute and the University of Bremen hope hope their solution will be able to tackle both of these problems. They have lined their trousers with sensors which are triggered by the approaching saw – and turn it off. Prototypes are already being tested in the field – or in the forest. “We’ve successfully integrated the sensors into clothing. We’d like to improve the washing cycles, especially for industrial care,” said the Institute’s Dr. Jan Beringer, director of the Department of Textile Services and Innovations at the privately-run textile and consumer products research organisation, based in a restored castle off the Neckar River near Stuttgart. The system works by having switch contacts weaved into throughout the trouser fabric: the contacts, each a few centimetres long and hermetically sealed, contain highly sensitive fibres or “reeds” which sit a small gap apart from one another. The fibres need a magnet to connect them, at which point they activate a switch to send a radio signal to switch off the chainsaw. The magnet to connect them is contained in the guide bar of the saw – so as soon as it gets too close to the trousers, it connects the fibres in the trousers which switches the buzzing saw off. The radio transmitter is battery-operated, and if the battery level falls below an effective charge, the power saw is also switched off so the user can change batteries. The researchers built the trousers for wearers moving around in heavy labour; the sensor-laden textile is lightweight, robust and smooth. And despite Beringer’s desire to further improve laundry performance, tests already show they can be washed many times without affecting the sensor system. Former tree surgeon Tim Hayford bears a 15-centimetre scar on his leg from where a chainsaw ripped through the conventional protective trousers he was wearing while up a tree. The saw caught a faulty seam which then tore, exposing his flesh to the blade. But you can count Hayford as a sensor-trousers skeptic. “Chainsaw trousers which are not faulty should protect you in most cases as it is,” the Briton told The Local from his farm in Devon, UK. “The trouble [with conventional protective trousers] is that they are very heavy and stiff and you get very hot with them. This new idea would be attractive if it would allow you to wear lighter-duty trousers, but I’m not sure you would want to trust an electronic signal completely.” Hayford figures if his trousers were not defective, he would have been protected. German forestry workers sustained some 17,300 job-related injuries in the decade from 1999 to 2009, according to statistics from the Board for Forest Work and Technology. This is in a workforce which is currently pegged at about 25,000; in a typical year about 5 percent of the workers would receive some kind of injury, mostly from falling branches. About 20 percent of German forest-related injuries are cuts, according to the board. The last such injury survey taken by the United States Consumer Products Safety Commission counted 28,500 total chainsaw injuries in 1999; 36 percent of which were injuries to the legs or knees. Hayford’s other objection is that the sensor might be too much—it is set to go off somewhere between five and 10 cm close in to the user’s legs. “In some circumstances you might be in a tiny space and it might be extremely frustrating if the saw cuts off all the time,” he said. But he does figure that if the problem is a nasty, out-of-control approach from the chainsaw, the sensor-controlled brake could be useful. This out-of-control business can happen during a chainsaw “kickback” — when the teeth of the saw catches on something while rotating around the tip of the blade—which is the largest single cause of injuries from chainsaws every year. Beringer says that the sensor field is adjustable and while no system can be 100 percent, tests show the protective sensor trousers can be 99 percent effective and deliver lightweight protection. While most chainsaw injuries happen to professional foresters, 3.4 million of which work in Europe alone, hundreds of thousands of saws are sold every year on top of that to private buyers. The researchers face just one more snag in reaching that market—finding a chainsaw manufacturer as a partner to go with the trousers. Michael Dumiak (news@thelocal.de)
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#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
Chain-saw cutting seems to be a fairly demanding task, physically and mentally since the gas-powered ones are fairly heavy. You tend to relax after a big cut, dropping/lowering the running saw close to your legs, lowering your concentration, including on safety. Close proximity to the loud noise, rattling your brain, may be a factor. The cause of injuries is not publicized enough by hospitals/medics and so people aren't sensitized enough to various dangers.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
A word of caution to all: Years ago my wife's Polish uncle (there are no Polish jokes-they're all true!) was clearing woody growth in our backyard with a small, 14" chainsaw (The Dilettante-Lawyer-Gay Environmentalist-Hobbyist Model) and he made the mistake of trying to cut something using the top of the saw guide instead of the bottom. Now, the difference is, the sharpened teeth edges are moving away from the user on the top of the guide and moving toward the user after it goes over the tip of the chain guide. Used correctly, when you push down on a chainsaw it not only throw cuttings down at your feet but it will kick UP if you hit a knot or a nail. This means that you have gravity and the saw's weight (and presumably your own strength and weight) to limit kickback and avoid cutting your own head off. "Unkie" learned the hard way that he had no strength to either pull the top of the saw into the sapling or resist the kickback that flipped the saw down into his shin which was about 10 inches away, cutting a wickedly ragged laceration into his leg. The moral of the story is you don't cut using the top of the chain guide. Always lower the bottom into the work and be prepared for a kickback. If "Unkie" had turned around backwards and bent slightly at the waist he'd have been able to safely make the cut at approx 18" above ground level instead of trying to cut with the chain on top of the guide. And if the chain broke it would be on the bottom and too short to change his life or his looks forever. Used properly there's no danger of the chain whipping back around the tip and maiming the user because of the direction of the chain.
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