Development of Personal Protective Wear for Firework Employees

Abstract

The fireworks industry is well known for being a hazardous industry, from the initial manufacturing phase to the transportation and storage of fireworks. The industry is situated in Sivakasi, Tamilnadu where more than 800000 people are employed. Most of the accidents occur in the filling of chemicals and storage of raw materials due to improper handling, lack of awareness on safety measures and not using any protective clothing (wear). Hence an attempt is made in this research to develop a protective wear from PVC coated Cotton fabric. In the initial phase, cotton yarn is selected based on commercial availability. The yarn properties such as yarn count, lea strength, single yarn strength, elongation and TPI were evaluated as per standards. It is observed from the results that the cotton yarn has lea strength of 75.39 lbf, single yarn strength of 0.26kg/f and Rate of elongation is observed as 18.8 mm. In the second phase the yarn samples are coated with PVC and fabric samples are developed. The fabric samples are tested for flammability, LOI, abrasion resistance, air permeability and comfort properties. Key Words: protective wear, cotton, pvc, flame retardant, comfort.