Personal Protective Equipment Directive
TÜV NEL, based in East Kilbride, Glasgow, has an extensive experience of inspecting, assessing and testing protective equipment, particularly fall arrest systems and devices.
As a UKAS-approved test house, TÜV NEL is accredited to conduct tests to EN standards. TÜV NEL has also obtained notified body status for conducting CE Approvals under Article 10 of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Directive and Product Surveillance under Article 11.
Testing Facilities
TUV NEL’s purpose-built fall arrest PPE testing facility features multiple dynamic test rigs which are used for routine tests as well as research programmes. A range of static test machines is also available that can be configured to apply tensile, compressive or cyclic loading, as required. Horizontal safety line testing can be performed on a horizontal test facility. A particular feature of TUV NEL’s PPE test facility is that it offers a maximum fall height of 7 m thus providing clients with the opportunity to have their products tested under
realistic conditions.
Full-body and stub-limb anthropometric dummies are available for use in fall arrest tests. These can be instrumented with tri-axial accelerometers to measure spinal acceleration and can be used in conjunction with high-speed video filming to provide a detailed insight into human effects.
An 11 m high outdoor tower is available for testing larger scale multi-user PPE and for general load testing. The tower features a hydraulic actuator with dual hydraulic quick release hooks to enable drop snatch and static testing to be CE Marking and Product Surveillance.
