PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
As experts in impact protection, Tech21 is diversifying into the world of Personal Protective Equipment and is working as an R&D partner with RPS Solutions, leaders in Manufacturing Solutions for the Oil and Gas and industrial industries, to provide a new and innovative impact absorbing glove design to protect workers hands in high-risk environments.
Hand injury statistics from the Bureau of Labor in 2017 show hand injuries led to approximately 5 days out of work, with a single hand fracture costing on average $106,000.
Your hands are your most valuable tools, and in tough industrial environments where your hands are constantly put into precarious situations, protecting them needs to be a top priority, not just for the wellbeing of your team members, but also to protect the financial liability of companies.
Utilising Tech21’s pioneering FlexShock3D impact absorbing material, RPS have innovated their Crude Hands PPE equipment to provide an astoundingly durable, flexible, and comfortable new design to the Mining, Oil & Gas industries.
Material Science
Working with a band new patented geometric design and utilising the impact attenuation qualities of the FlexShock3D polymer, these gloves provide impact absorbency considerably better than other commodity varieties.
Along with their ultra-absorbent design, they are unaffected by hot and cold temperature changes and are the thinnest PPE gloves to pass the Level 3 ANSI 138 test standard, which measures the force transmitted through the glove during an impact event, in kilo Newtons (kN). This test standard focuses specifically on back-of-the-hand protection by evaluating the impact attenuation from the knuckles to the fingers, and the FlexShock3D Crude Hands Gloves passed Level 3, which is the highest rating and suitable for workers in a high-impact
Design
The patented geometric design utilised for the gloves not only provides increased hand coverage and impact absorbency, but it also reduces the overall weight of the gloves by 10%, making them significantly easier to wear and transport. Unlike previous gloves which provide around 80% back-of-hand coverage, the geometric pattern delivers 100% coverage with increased dexterity of the hands, improved ventilation and superior comfort when worn helping to improve the worker’s experience on the job.
Also important to note is that the gloves passed with the best Level 3 rating in both flat hand and curved hand positions, ensuring that however the gloves are being used, worker’s hands are consistently protected from dangerous impacts in their line of work.
3D Printing
A most remarkable feature of these gloves, is that the FlexShock3D element of the design is 3D printed directly onto the glove fabric, making it the first and only glove of its kind to be mass produced via 3D printing. With no tooling required for manufacturing, aside from the huge cost saving element, these gloves are customisable in both colour and branding making them wholly unique to each client’s requirements. And thanks to the sustainability of the FlexShock3D material itself, it makes the impact protection of these gloves biodegradable, thereby reducing their harm on the environment after use.
Product Benefits
