Abstract: The results of a study on the visibility of the surroundings by operators of specific high-lift counterbalanced industrial trucks with loads of 1 m, 1.1 m, and 1.2 m in height are presented. The results of determining the quantitative relationship between the length of the blind spot, resulting from the height of the transported load, and the magnitude of the lateral head tilt of the truck operator are provided. An accurate and simplified method for determining acceptable visibility for a high-lift industrial truck operator in the form of blind spot dimensions dependent on load height is provided.
1. INTRODUCTION
This article contains the results of the project no. 4R titled “Determination of changes in the visibility of the surroundings by operators of high-lift industrial trucks in the aspect of accident risk,” carried out at CIOP-PIB in the years 2008-2010.
High-lift truck operators make decisions based on information that reaches them 90% visually. Good visibility of the surroundings for a forklift operator is extremely important for maintaining safety. Research conducted in the USA [1] shows that 80% of accidents involving high-lift industrial trucks (striking pedestrians, collisions with other trucks, collisions with infrastructure elements, truck tipping) result from insufficient visibility of the surroundings by the operator.
In 2004, a draft of an international technical standard [2] was created, enabling the assessment of visibility for a truck operator, taking into account the design features and construction of the truck. The project did not take into account the transported load.
Visibility from the operator’s station of an industrial truck can be defined in various ways. In this project, it is assumed that road lighting is in accordance with requirements and is not the subject of the research. This is a matter regulated in technical standards, e.g., in PN-EN 12464 [3, 4].
We also do not analyze here the visibility resulting from atmospheric conditions or air transparency. In this project, we consider geometric visibility, i.e., resulting from the geometry of a given load placed on a given truck, and therefore we take into account the visibility related to the range and size of the blind spot created as a result of placing a given load on a given high-lift counterbalanced industrial truck. (…)
The article contains 15,955 characters.
Source: Logistyka Magazine