The Purdue University-Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department has since the 1970s been documenting and investigating incidents involving grain-storage and handling facilities at both commercial and on-farm locations. With support from a U.S. Department of Labor Susan Harwood Training Grant, the effort was expanded in 2013 to document additional types of incidents. The expanded data collection included incidents involving grain-transport vehicles – trucks, wagons, railcars – as well as injuries occurring inside of confined spaces due to exposure to powered mechanical components such as augers; falls from or into confined spaces; and other types of agricultural confined spaces including both tower and horizontal bunk forage-storage silos, liquid storage tanks, livestock-waste storage facilities and transport vehicles. In addition now included in the database are explosions caused by grain, other agricultural dusts or combustible gases. By definition, an explosion requires containment – involving some type of confined space – along with fuel, heat and oxygen to occur. Data has been coded using a standardized coding process and stored in the Purdue Agricultural Confined Space Incident Database.
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Researchers are Yuan-Hsin Cheng, ag safety and health researcher; Mahmoud Nour, post-doctoral researcher; Bill Field, professor; Kingsly Ambrose, associate professor; Edward Sheldon, research associate; all with the Purdue University-Agricultural Safety and Health Program in West Lafayette, Indiana. Visit engineering.purdue.edu/ABE/extension/AgSafetyHealth for more information.
