By: Superior Glove, leading safety glove innovator
Not surprisingly, injuries caused by knocks, bumps, and pinches are among the most common across various industries and can cause a wide range of hand injuries. When an object strikes or pinches a hand, the force is transferred directly from the object to the hand and can lead to injury. This is known as an impact injury. From minor bruising to broken bones, fractures, or contusions, workers need to keep their hands safe by using the right protection for the job.
The key to reducing these types of injuries is by wearing safety gloves with impact bumpers. Impact protection bumpers deform upon contact and gradually spread the force over a longer time frame. This way, the hand does not absorb all the impact all at once, decreasing the likelihood of a severe injury.
So how do glove manufacturers achieve protection using impact bumpers? There are three key components to how we, at Superior Glove, innovate bumpers to achieve the best impact protection for workers:
- Material
- Design
- Placement
Bumper material
To achieve effective protection from impact hazards, materials used for the bumpers are optimized for deformation to reduce the impact absorbed by the hands. One of the most common impact-resistant materials used to achieve this is TPR (Thermoplastic rubber).
TPR is one of the most common materials used to achieve impact protection and performs well at a relatively low thickness. It has shock-absorbing properties and offers high durability for bending, stretching, and moving. All of these properties help maintain range of motion for workers to perform tasks comfortably while also providing impact protection. TPR also performs well in cold and hot environments.
Bumper design and placement
At Superior Glove, we leverage technology to maximize impact protection and our strengthened commitment to this goal is shown through the various technological advances that have been made. Utilizing a variety of materials and techniques, we can maximize impact protection beyond what is possible with a single material.
To do this, we engineer material blends and incorporate innovative proprietary designs and bumper placement that improves our gloves’ performance under impact while maintaining as much comfort and dexterity as possible.
Left: Our 4Pro Goatskin Driver gloves, using our proprietary blend, offer the industry’s highest level of impact protection (ANSI Level 3 impact resistance) without increasing bumper thickness. Right: Our TenActiv™ STXFNVB uses patent-pending skeleton bumpers to allow high dexterity while providing maximum ANSI Level 3 impact resistance.
Learn More
There are other important factors to understanding glove performance and selection of impact-resistant gloves. To learn more, we’ve created a comprehensive guide that expands on the ins-and-outs of impact-resistant gloves, including a better understanding of the underlying forces at work and how impact rating standards work. We’ve also clarified the differences between how each standard tests and assigns impact protection. Click hereto read more.