Spin windows augment safety programs. Without Spin Windows, an operator may be tempted to bypass a machine interlock in order to get a peek at what's happening inside. This creates the potential for catastrophic injuries.
Given the possibility of product liability and injury settlement awards due to the possibility of a machine operator becoming injured or killed due to exposure to the work area via a bypassed or defeated interlock, T2K suggest that management, unions, and insurance underwriters look at the possibility of endorsing the safety benefits of spin windows.
Additionally, given the approval of the "C Level" Safety Standards for Machine Tools in the European Union in late 2001, T2K would recommend that all builders, operators, and insurers acquaint themselves with the current state-of-the-art with regard to designing machine tools with operator safety in mind.
Key differences between the EN Standards and previous efforts at machine tool safety design is the fruition of research into the effects of the tool and workholder failure in lathes and machining centers. Namely, the attempt to explicitly match the maximum anticipated energy a machine may impart in a catistrophic failure to a projectile with the actual ability of the machine tool enclosure design to contain that energy without exposing the operator to death or injury.
Also factored into these and the recent revisions to the ANSI AMT B11 standard is the research into the degredation of polycarbonate impact resistance over time due to the influence of metalworking fluid exposure.
Research sponsored in Germany concluded that polycarbonate (sold under the trade names Lexan, Macrolon, Tuffak, etc.) can lose a dangerous level of the material's initial impact resistance in just a few years. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine which polycarbonate windows are affected by visual examination alone.
As a result of their findings, the German Machine Tool Builder's Association recommended that their members classify polycarbonate as a wear material that should be replaced every two years. Further, even if the polycarbonate was encapsulated with an edge treatment, glass, and an operator side overlay to protect the polycarbonate from metalworking fluid exposure, the original recommendation was that such a window be replaced every five years.
Since the research into polycarbonate embrittlement came out in 1999, the makers of encapsulated safety windows seem to have pushed the consensus for replacment cycle on such product closer to ten years, due to the experience the industry is having with such windows.
As all T2K bonded spin window systems are mounted to machine tool windows, this subject is more than of passing interest. As an installation service, T2K can provide Visiport and DiscAir spin window systems pre-mounted on almost any standard thickness of polycarbonate available, including metric sizes. T2K also pre-mounts customer supplied machine tool windows, and can purchase windows from most builders.
Finally, T2K has a ditribution arrangement with a custom machiine tool window fabricator in Germany that supplied machine tool windows meeting any required impact standard. We welcome customers and builders to get a competitive quotation on machine tool safety and polycarbonate windows from our facility.
Contact T2K for details.
Posted by T2K.