What Qualifies as a Safe Anchorage Point for a PFAS?
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) defines the parameters for a safe anchorage point in Section 1910.66 (Appendix C) as follows: “Anchorages to which personal fall arrest equipment is attached shall be capable of supporting at least 5,000 pounds (22.2 kN) per employee attached, or shall be designed, installed, and used as part of a complete personal fall arrest systemwhich maintains a safety factor of at least two, under the supervision of a qualified person.” “The anchorage should be rigid, and should not have a deflection greater than .04 inches (1 mm) when a force of 2,250 pounds (10 kN) is applied.” The regulation intentionally keys in on “5,000 pounds per attached employee,” because it is extremely likely that a person who is NOT an engineer will survey a location and make a good faith assessment (literally an uneducated guess) that a particular anchorage can bear a 5,000 pound load. Moral: Just eyeballing it doesn't always work. The “or” statement that mentions “the design of a system to a safety factor of at least two, under the supervision of a qualified person” is only important to the Qualified Person who engineers complete fall protection systems. As long as the individual designing a system is a “Qualified Person” as defined by OSHA and ANSI Z359, they can engineer a “complete personal fall arrest system” to a safety factor of two. Again the engineer must be in conformance with the “Qualified Person” requirement as defined by OSHA. This means the fall protection system will be safe, but not over-designed. When choosing an anchor point, remember these things: • The strongest option should always be your first choice • Steel members are preferable to almost anything else • Wood may be acceptable as a temporary anchor, but MUST be engineer-certified • Anchor bolts, through-bolts and plate washers should always be inspected by a qualified person • Equipment such as eyebolts, turnbuckles, embeds, beam clamps etc. may also be used and should be carefully inspected and evaluated for load bearing capacity (if they were not originally designed for use as fall protection equipment)
Anchorage Strength Requirements: 3,000lbs VS 5,000 lbs
3,600 lbs
5,000 lbs
• The minimum required anchor breaking strength for certified/engineered anchors • This number is representative of the anchor achieving the required 2:1 strength ratio required by OSHA and ANSI • The maximum permitted arresting force for fall pro- tection systems is 1,800 lbs (1,800 X 2 = 3,600)
• Minimum required anchorage connector breaking strength for non-certified anchors (per ANSI) for a Personal Fall Arrest application • When pulled on a static hydraulic test bed, an anchor labelled with “5,000 lbs.” will not fail until at least the 5,000 lb. mark is reached
• The number that has been selected by regulatory bodies to help ensure a sufficient safety margin is achieved. Remember: Stronger = Better; Higher = Better
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