Abstract

Accidents involving the arms and hands are responsible for one-third of the total annual compensation paid by the CSST (Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec, Québec Occupational Health and Safety Commission); almost 80% of these accidents involve the hands. These accidents are often the result of cuts or nicks caused by tools or sharp objects. The use of adequate protective gloves could eliminate a large proportion of these cuts, or at least reduce the severity of injury, but the large number of available models and the absence of evaluation methods hinder users from making informed choices. This project will develop a method for the evaluation of the resistance of protective gloves to cuts.

During the initial phase of the project, a test bed will be developed, calibrated, and validated. During the second phase, the resistance to cuts of currently available gloves will be evaluated. The resulting rankings will facilitate users' selection of the most appropriate gloves, while the integration of the test method into an evaluation standard would encourage further development of existing products.