Application example: Hazardous goods transport

Transcription

Dräger Review
Energy
103
Europe’s natural gas reserves
are stored in caverns
Hazardous Goods
Dräger Review 103
Safer transport thanks to zero
blood alcohol
Technology for Life October 2011
Dream
October 2011 Risk and Safety
When sleep is work
Risk
New technologies require
new strategies
EN_01_388_Titel.indd 1
08.09.11 08:17
C on t en t s 150,000 kilos
CalCulating
4 e x pe r i e n C e She helps newborns
and their parents, he “does alcohol”.
6 n e w s the Dräger Design center
is a virtual hospital. a training truck
enables realistic accident-rescue
exercises. Dräger strikes a high
profile at leading trade shows.
8 Fo Cu s Mankind has faced risks
throughout its history, and people have
learned to manage them. but our
high-tech world is giving rise to new
types of risks – which can only
be overcome with new strategies.
2
EN_02-03_388_Inhalt.indd 2
24
treating
RPTC MUNICH
8
CoRbIs
cOver phOtOgraphy: plainpicture/Sauber, helge
is the approximate weight of the apparatus used in a proton beam therapy for cancer patients at the rinecker proton therapy Center in munich. read more starting on page 24. 16 energy crude oil and natural gas
are stored in underground caves.
these caverns are used to safeguard
energy supplies in times of crisis.
24 ane s t he si a the proton beam
is being used in a new kind of cancer
treatment – the beam is generated in
a superconducting particle accelerator.
20 sh ippin g C o mpanie s companies that transport hazardous
materials bear a great responsibility.
in germany, the hamburg-based hoyer
group is taking this role seriously –
for example, through its use of breathalcohol vehicle immobilizers.
28 D r e am r e se arC h Dreams can
help to heal the soul, but they
can also be haunting – for patients
in intensive care, for example.
32 mo bile g a s D e t eC tor s
a blue steel cabinet is used to ensure
orderly allocation and return of
gas detection technology and other
equipment.
Dräger review 103 | OctOber 2011
01.09.11 13:50
36 F ir e Fig h t i n g New Zealand
Fire Service uses dramatic
campaigns to warn about dangers –
including those that can arise
when using the stove at home.
50
DevelOping
50 O u t lO Ok what can technology learn from animals? bionics
uses ideas born from millions
of years of evolution.
54 serv ice Dräger worldwide.
42 in s ig h t the Parat c has been
providing protection against toxic firerelated gases for 30 years. the
fire escape hoods are hand crafted.
46 D r u g t e s t Südharz Hospital
in Nordhausen, germany, uses
the Drugtest 5000 as part of the
admission process.
EN_02-03_388_Inhalt.indd 3
56 clOse - u p the UcF 7000
infrared camera can “see” people
and hot spots through heavy
smoke. its “eye” is a special chip.
get t y iMageS
helping
Mara SoMMer
36
iMprint
Publisher: Drägerwerk Ag & co. KgaA,
corporate communications
editorial address: Moislinger Allee 53–55,
23558 Lübeck, germany /
[email protected], www.draeger.com
editor in Chief: björn wölke,
tel.: +49 451 882 20 09, Fax: +49 451 882 39 44
Publishing House:
teLLUS cOrPOrAte MeDiA gmbH
editorial Consultant: Nils Schiffhauer
(responsible according to press law)
art Direction, Design, and Picture editing:
redaktion 4 gmbH
translation: transForm gmbH
Printing: Dräger + wullenwever print+media
Lübeck gmbH & co. Kg
iSSN 1869-7275
3
01.09.11 13:51
E xpER IEN CE
PeO Pl e w h O Pe rFO rM
What Moves Us – Dräger Worldwide
Elizabeth MacMillan York, Registered Nurse at the Sunnybrook NICU in Toronto, Canada
veloped ventilation technologies and the other knowledge, skills,
and strategies we needed. Neonatal intensive care was a unique
area within pediatric medicine and nursing. today, we live in a
world where we can share new knowledge and the latest technologies immediately. the global neonatal world has become very
small and we can learn from each other globally, to the benefit of
infants and families.
the families are an integral part of the care team while their
infants are in our NicU and during visits to our Neonatal Follow
Up clinic. Families support our work after leaving the NicU by
participating on our Family Advisory council. this council gives
of their time and expertise to provide advice to the NicU team
and support to present NicU families. i could not have hoped for
a more enjoyable, exciting and fullfilling career.”
PhOtOgrAPhY: JOhN hrYNiUk/POlAriS/lAiF, MArA SOMMer; text: Silke UMbAch
“From time to time, i experience an unexpected moment of happiness: i pass a family on the street and the parents recognize me.
‘You took care of our baby in the NicU.’ we talk about the child
and all that has happened since it was discharged. this child and
family were in our neonatal intensive care unit during what must
have been a very challenging time for the family. Such encounters highlight for me the value of the work we do. in our professional world, these infants and their families are a part of our world
only for a short time – a matter of days or months. For the families we care for, we remain a part of their lives forever. the work
we do today in neonatal intensive care has changed dramatically
since i began working in the field over 30 years ago. More than
40 years ago, the pediatric community began ventilating infants.
in the early days, our eyes were our monitoring tools as we de-
4
EN_04-05_Menschenbewegen.indd 4
01.09.11 13:51
James Dempsey, New Zealand Police, Wellington
“when describing our job we simply say: ‘i do alcohol,’ which means
we conduct roadside breath checks. i used to be a truck driver, but
i wanted to join the police force. At first i was a beat patrol cop,
and then i moved to alcohol. we have mobile testing devices and
the ‘booze bus.’ we use the buses to set up checkpoints, where
everyone is tested, even if there are no grounds for suspicion.
when we catch someone who’s over the drink drive limit, they
usually get upset and even insist they had only one drink. i guess
in many cases that’s got to be a really big glass! we want to send
a message: Anyone who is going to get behind the wheel should
be sure not to drink any alcohol whatsoever. there are lots of repeat offenders, and for them the punishment becomes much more
severe. Anyone caught for the third time faces up to two years’ imprisonment, loss of their driver’s license for more than one year, and
a fine of up to 6,000 New Zealand dollars (about € 3,500). Once
i experienced something really creepy: A car that rolled up to us,
EN_04-05_Menschenbewegen.indd 5
with no passengers inside! we just jumped out of the way, and the
car collided with a tree. we discovered that the vehicle was stolen, and the four occupants had fled into the bushes. the saddest
moments are when kids are involved. the other day we stopped a
woman who had her 18-month old baby in the car; her blood-alcohol content was 1.2 percent. we had to call her husband. He was
at home in bed and was really shocked.
the checkpoints make drivers much more afraid that we’ll catch
them, like in Auckland last year, when we caught over 300 people
in one weekend. the Dräger Alcotest 9510 is very effective – and
accepted for evidential purposes in courts of law in New Zealand.
the devices in the bus print out three copies of the test strip, one
for us, one to be presented in court, and one for the driver. the
information on the print-out includes the names of the driver and
the police officer, and the time of the test. So it’s no longer possible to claim: ‘but i wasn’t even driving at that time.’”
5
01.09.11 13:52
A+A: The world of occupational safety.
D-111137-2011
PHOtOgrAPHy: rene tiLLmAnn
Ne w s The Dräger Design Center: showcasing the latest medical technology in action.
A Maze of Hazardous The Dräger Design Center: substances
L ike a Virtual Hospital A+A, germany’s leading trade fair for
occupational safety, is held in Düsseldorf
every two years. this year’s event will
run from October 18 to 21 and will host
around 1,500 exhibitors. Dräger is
appearing in an approximately 500-squaremeter booth in Hall 6/e 15 under the
slogan “Lost in the jungle of hazardous
substances?”. “we’ll be showing how
to measure and detect dangerous gases,”
says Oliver Steinmann from Dräger,
“and how our products and services help
to protect, support, and save lives.” the
exhibits will include a new automatic detector tube pump (Dräger X-act 5000) –
an explosion-proof, all-in-one solution for
taking measurements with Dräger
short-term detector tubes or sampling
tubes and systems. A team of over
50 Dräger employees will be on hand to
respond to customers’ questions and
requests. the 2009 A+A attracted about
66,000 visitors from 65 countries.
6
EN_06-07_Nachrichten.indd 6
the new Dräger Design center in Lübeck, germany, showcases the company’s medical
systems about 700 square meters of floor space. the facility, which occupies an
existing building, was completed in a mere six months at a cost of around 2 million euros.
“we’ve recreated all acute care areas,” explains project manager Dietmar Schäfer.
visitors to the “Hospital Area” can trace a patient’s progress through the stages of transport ventilation, resuscitation, induction, operation, post-operative, recovery, and intensive care. this gives visitors first-hand experience with not only various Dräger devices
in action, but also integrated medical equipment such as gas management systems.
“in addition to the devices,” says Schäfer, “we also showcase other solutions along
the clinical pathway, such as patient data management systems.” Upon request, a
room can be set up according to the exact specifications desired by customers for their
own hospital. “this enables them to try everything out and see if it fits in with their
established working practices, or if any changes are necessary,” Schäfer explains.
Using a 3D computer application, the desired configuration can then be created
as a virtual working environment and documented. this results in a customized solution
that is tailored to the client’s precise specifications, without the need for costly
modifications after installation.
the Design center also has conference rooms where customers can see detailed
demonstrations of individual devices and have a chance to try them out. “we’re
expecting several thousand visitors a year,” says Schäfer. the facility is designed so
that two separate groups can visit simultaneously.
01.09.11 13:53
D-100-2010
D-111145-2011
Dräger Raises 2011
Earnings Forecast
The TRT 7000: A simulated truck crash.
A new form of ventilation monitoring.
A Training Truck
for Rescue Drills
MEDICA: Illustrating
the Patient’s Transport
For many fire crews, the task of freeing
the driver from a crashed truck can pose
unfamiliar challenges. the door alone
weighs around 80 kilograms, and whereas
scrap yards offer ample opportunity
to practice cutting through car bodywork,
trucks rarely end up there, since they
are mainly broken up for spare parts. with
the trt 7000, emergency services
personnel can now train for truck accidents
and incidents involving hazardous goods.
Designed in consultation with firefighting
experts, the truck rescue trainer provides the perfect scenario for practically
any emergency drill. this includes obtaining access to a trapped driver, forcing
back the front end of the driver’s cab,
pumping off hazardous liquids, and sealing
tank leaks. the truck trailer used to
transport the trt 7000 is approved for
road use, so the rig can be deployed
on any training site. All of the vehicle parts
cut up in the course of training can be
replaced.
the MeDicA trade show, which will
be held in Düsseldorf from November 16
to 19, will feature more than 4,500
exhibitors and the very latest products
and services for the healthcare sector.
“in our 700-square-meter booth we will
be illustrating the patient’s transport
within the hospital,” explains Ole Schäfer
from Dräger. in line with the slogan “At
your side in the hospital,” the different
care areas will be showcased, including the emergency room, the operating
room, the intensive care unit, and the
neonatal care unit – with a focus on the
role played by solutions from Dräger.
the latter include patient data files, which
provide medical personnel with all
the information they require. Additionally,
Dräger will present a new form of
ventilation monitoring, electrical impedance
tomography*, enabling intensivists to
view regional distribution of ventilation.
EN_06-07_Nachrichten.indd 7
* eit is not commercially available in all countries.
Drägerwerk Ag & co. KgaA (Lübeck)
expects earnings in financial year 2011 to
be better than previously forecasted.
On the unchanged assumption of slight
net sales growth and unchanged exchange rates, the company now anticipates
an ebit margin of 8.0 to 9.5 percent
(previously: 7.5 to 8.5 percent). the reason
for this is the positive business performance in the first half of 2011. Nevertheless,
Dräger invested 12.3 percent more in research and development alone than in the
previous year. “in 2011, we will invest more
in future products and market potentials as
well as in the expansion of sales activities,”
said Stefan Dräger, chairman of the executive board of Drägerwerk verwaltungs
Ag. Dräger also plans to invest more in
the group-wide it infrastructure. However,
the costs for the new marketing and
sale structure in 2011 will not come to the
same figure as originally planned.
Communicating in
a Full Face Mask
the fully integrated FPS-cOM-PLUS
communication unit has been specifically
developed for the Dräger FPS 7000
full face mask. it enables clear communication even under the most extreme
conditions, and it can be used either as
a voice amplifier or connected to a
radio handset via cable. A noise reduction
system filters out any interference.
New Dräger Review:
Initial Reactions
Starting this year, Dräger review has
combined stories from the two fields of
medical and safety technology. the
change was not as radical as the editors
had expected. the readers’ reaction
has been uniformly positive with regard
to both the journalistic content and the
magazine’s new look. Our thanks go to all
as well as those who sent us feedback
– often in detail.
7
06.09.11 07:50
Just the tip of the
iceberg. The real
risk to shipping lies
hidden beneath the
8
surface of the water.
EN_08-15_FokusRisiko.indd 8
01.09.11 13:55
Ri sk Fo c u s
The Invisible Enemy
today’s technological world has given birth to a new species of risk. an appropriate
response requires the development of nEw sTraTEgIEs.
PhOtOgRaPhy: cORbis
F
or one farmer from the village of
Kaponga, in northwestern New
Zealand, there was once a Friday
the 13th that he will always remember
for its “silver lining.” For although he
lost a cow, he ended up keeping his cowshed. That night, an extraordinary chain
of events occurred. It was raining, getting very dark, and a driver failed to see
a cow in the road and hit it broadside.
The force of the impact caused the engine
hood to fly up, and the windshield disintegrated. The car skidded off the road and
knocked over an electricity pole. A short
circuit sent a power surge racing into the
farmer’s house and his cowshed, where it
caused the electricity meter to burst into
flames. The building would have gone up
in smoke but for the fact that the flames
burst a water pipe, thereby dousing the
blaze. The cow in the road succumbed,
but the rest of the herd in the barn were
just wet and confused. The driver was
barely injured, and, all things considered,
the farmer was greatly relieved.
Although there was nothing earthshaking about the events in Kaponga
that night, they certainly demonstrate
how the world can be shaken. As a rule, it
isn’t isolated incidents that wreak havoc,
but rather their surprising concatenation – rain, a stray cow, nighttime driving,
a short circuit in the cowshed. There’s
nothing exceptional or risky about such
events if we consider them separately. But
that night they were all lined up like dominoes ready to topple. On a large scale, such
a sequence of events can have a major impact. Take the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or the radiation leak in Fukushima,
DRägeR Review 103 | OctObeR 2011
or the grounding of international air
traffic by volcanic ash from Iceland – all
stemmed from an unfortunate combination of factors such as bad weather, plate
tectonics, an erupting volcano, planning
errors. And it was only in combination
that they developed the kind of explosive
power that kept the world on tenterhooks
for months. If the wind hadn’t been blowing from the wrong direction, thus blowing a cloud of volcanic ash into European
airspace and crippling air travel, few people would have even paid attention to the
eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.
Technology can help minimize risk
Nobody ever really thinks about such occurrences before they actually happen.
The term coined by philosopher Nassim
Taleb to describe such rare and unpredictable events is “black swans.” Each event
of this type is extremely improbable, but
since so many of them are lurking just beyond the horizon, so to speak, there is always the chance that one or the other will
come to pass. As a result, we have the impression of a regular string of surprising
events. While such surprises can’t be prevented, we can certainly prepare for them.
People have always been exposed to
risk, not least in the form of natural disasters. Today, technology helps minimize
risk, but paradoxically it can also exacerbate the consequences of such events. In
prehistoric times, earthquakes caused
less damage on the human level, since
there were fewer people around and fewer
buildings to be destroyed. During the Lis- >
P
robabilities and associated dangers From a technical point of view, risks are measured in terms of probability of occurrence
and the magnitude of consequences. Once these two variables have been quantified,
the rest is simple calculation. but how are they quantified? Most people have difficulty
assessing the probability of an event and its consequences. this poses the biggest
problem in dealing with risks. and it occurs well before the math comes into play. the
following example shows how misleading probabilities can be. in the summer of 1913
there was an unbelievable series in the Monte carlo casino – the roulette ball landed on
black 26 times in a row. None of the seasoned gamblers at the roulette table had
ever witnessed anything like it. and almost all of them let themselves be deceived by
their intuition. they gambled on red, because they felt it was long overdue – as if
the incredible run of black had somehow tipped the scales in red’s favor. yet, as every
gambler knows, each turn of the wheel is a new game: the probability of the ball
landing on black is invariably 48.65 percent. On that basis, the chances of the unbroken
run were a minuscule 0.0000063519 percent! the gamblers’ unreliable instinct
ended up making the casino several million francs richer.
9
01.09.11 13:55
“We aren’t programmed to
understand probabilities”
> bon earthquake of 1755, the first major disaster of modern times, it was not the actual earth tremors that killed thousands
of people. Most of the victims died under collapsed buildings up to eight stories high or in the subsequent blaze that
swept through the city. Similarly, the biggest hazard of the Kobe earthquake of
1995 was fire fueled by gas from ruptured mains. A lack of water severely hampered the efforts of the fire service, and
the flames killed more people than the
earthquake itself.
Of particular concern today are the
exponential risks associated with computer viruses. In 2003 a computer worm
by the name of “SQL Slammer” was programmed by unknown perpetrators and
unleashed on the online community.
Within minutes it had infected thousands
of servers around the world, bringing the
Internet almost to the point of collapse.
And in the U.S., the worm crashed the security system of a nuclear power plant.
Although different risks emerge with
time, our way of dealing with them – inherited from our ancestors in the Stone
Age – has remained essentially the same.
There are risks whose probability and
consequences can be evaluated. These
remain largely predictable: We expect
them and know how to deal with them.
And then there are the unpredictable, incalculable risks – the kind that cannot be
comprehended, either because their probability is unknown or there is no clear idea
of what they might involve. In such cases,
there is no precise awareness of risk,
merely a vague foreboding. Once such a
fear has begun to spread, it is very diffi-
10
cult to contain. For many years, debate
has raged as to whether radiation from
cell phones causes cancer. The scientific
evidence is scanty, and in June the World
Health Organization (WHO) classified the
radiation as “potentially carcinogenic.”
Many people took this as a recommendation not to use cell phones, although the
WHO had not in fact said that cell phones
are dangerous, merely that it cannot be
stated with certainty that they are harmless. It was a detail that many people
failed to register. Instead, they felt it confirmed their vague anxiety about the invisible radiation.
Be prepared for the unexpected
As a rule, the response to risk is an emotional one – and the most common emotion in this case is fear. But some people
thrive on a “no risk, no fun!” attitude.
People aren’t machines. Their actions
are determined not only by probabilities
but also by moods and hormones. People who have had insufficient sleep are
more willing to take risks than those who
are well rested. In a study of 17 traders at
the London Stock Exchange, John Coates
from the University of Cambridge found
that increased testosterone levels also
made them more prepared to take risks.
By contrast, the stress hormone cortisol
reduces this readiness. “Security has two
senses, which we must carefully distinguish: felt and real,” explains the U.S. ITsecurity expert Bruce Schneider. “You
can feel secure, although you’re not, and
you can be secure but without feeling it.”
In life, the unexpected happens all
the time. The weather forecast says sun-
01.09.11 13:55
Ri sk Fo c u s
communication enriches our lives – but its usefulness often obscures risks such as electromagnetic radiation.
In their physical aspect, crowds behave like liquids. This knowledge can prevent the outbreak of panic.
PhOtOgRaPhy: wit teRs (laRge PictuRe), cORbis, get t y images, DaDP
A tornado comes from nowhere, leaves a trail of devastation, and disappears once again – a freak of nature.
The at first undetermined source of a dangerous strain of E. coli slowed sales of salads and raw vegetables in summer 2011.
shine, and it rains. We go to the doctor
for a flu shot and still end up lying in
bed with a nasty dose. After climbing to
the top of the Eiffel Tower, we meet, of
all people, our neighbor. Paradoxically,
our brain is programmed to forecast the
future and to weigh such predictions,
but we still end up systematically making mistakes in this area. “We’re not
programmed to understand probabilities,” says the U.S. mathematician Amir
Aczel. Our thinking about probability is
strongly influenced by emotional experiences. And emotions tend to be induced
by spectacular events rather than insidious dangers. Whenever such an event
is recalled, the emotional center of our
brain, the amygdala, gets to work and reminds us of the feelings associated with
it – fear, dread, and panic, for example,
but also pleasure and joy. That’s why we
tend to exaggerate the risks of dramatic
events such as terrorist attacks or aircraft crashes and underestimate structural risks such as smoking.
On the level of everyday risks, this approach can cause problems. With regard
to larger risks, such as the safety of a technical installation, it soon reaches its limits.
In fact, in a complex world, the key to staying safe is not trying to predict everything
but rather being prepared for surprises.
The people at Dräger take risk transformation very seriously. Safety is the company’s core competence, and “technology for
life” is its guiding principle. Dräger’s services include drawing up risk analyses and
risk-management concepts for companies
and even municipal authorities, as well
as providing emergency-response training >
11
01.09.11 13:55
The greatest damage is often done in the first
quarter of an hour after the onset of an accident
PhOtOgraPhy: Sven winterling
Training under
realistic conditions
is the only way
to prepare for an
emergency.
12
> for employees and senior executives. Increasingly, such programs are focusing on
a new type of risk, such as that exemplified
in Germany’s “Solar Valley.” Located near
the city of Halle an der Saale, this is one of
the largest solar industry sites in Europe. It
is home to Q-Cells and other leading manufacturers of photovoltaic systems. Dräger
has developed and tested a safety concept
for the companies based there. One of the
persons responsible for the project is Peter Schmiedtchen, an expert in emergency
management at Dräger and himself an experienced fireman. Solar Valley poses a
special challenge in that the authorities
have exempted Q-Cells from the requirement of maintaining its own onsite fire
department. This saves the company a lot
of money, since having an onsite fire department means keeping a crew of half
a dozen firefighters on 24-hour standby,
which can rapidly generate annual costs
running into seven figures.
This almost backfired in 2007, when
there was an escape of dangerous chemicals. The volunteer firefighters soon arrived but were at a loss as far as what to
do. “They had no idea how to deal with
the chemicals,” explains Sven Winterling, safety officer at Q-Cells. It was some
time before the leakage was stopped. In
response, Q-Cells and Dräger drew up a
concept based on safety teams that take
action in the event of an emergency, and
which are manned not by professional
firefighters but rather regular employees
from Q-Cells. “Most of them work in production,” says Winterling. All in all, there
are 82 employees on the safety teams, all
on a voluntary basis.
01.09.11 13:55
Ri sk Fo c u s
That may sound like a makeshift solution,
but in fact it has considerable advantages
over the previous arrangement. The safety
teams are on the scene just as quickly as
an onsite fire department would be, and
much faster than an external fire department. And most important of all, the company employees know what they’re facing right away. Because it is their place
of work, they have a decisive head start
over regular fire crews, which always need
some time to get their bearings. This can
save valuable minutes – which is a crucial
consideration given that most fatalities occur, and the greatest damage is done, in
the first quarter of an hour after the onset of an accident.
overcoming anxieties
Preparing the safety teams involves
more than just providing the right
equipment. Proper training is also vital.
Schmiedtchen conducts special drills designed to instill the key elements of emergency management, including a clear
chain of command and a fixed workflow:
assessment of the situation followed by
formulation of a strategic concept, its execution, then renewed assessment, and
so on, until the situation is under control. Also very important is psychological training. This might include a visit to
a high ropes course, where team members practice rappelling routines, or an
exercise that calls for them to build a raft
from barrels in order to cross a river in
a supposedly contaminated zone, requiring them to also wear breathing apparatus. The aim is to teach them how to
overcome their anxieties, stay calm un-
der time pressure and in unfamiliar situations, and develop team skills. And
sometimes, when his trainees have really started to sweat, Schmiedtchen piles
on yet another task. “In an emergency
it’s not unusual to be confronted by several events simultaneously,” he explains.
“We’re not a boot camp, but we do turn
up the temperature, little by little.” But,
says Schmiedtchen, regardless of how
much the personnel practice, “there’s
no way to know how a fellow team member will react in a real emergency.”
In the meantime, other companies
have taken a look at the safety concept at
Q-Cells and set up their own safety teams.
This could well be the way forward for the
chemicals industry, where risks can arise
that rapidly exhaust the capacity of conventional fire services. “Some of the sub-
stances in use today are far more flammable and give off much more energy,” says
Schmiedtchen. Only specialists are able
to assess the risks involved. Automakers,
for example, are considering the use of a
new coolant in air conditioning units. In
the event of fire, however, this can form
the extremely dangerous substance hydrofluoric acid, an eventuality for which
most fire departments aren’t prepared.
Training courses like those conducted by Schmiedtchen are now finding
favor beyond industry, not least because
of the increasing privatization of public
services. Emergency planning for major
events, for example, must also take local
infrastructure into account. In the runup to the 2008 European soccer championship in Austria and Switzerland, for
instance, Dräger helped prepare local >
Vaccination – a small risk to avert a big one
immunization offers an interesting case study in risk assessment. A person accepts
a small risk to avoid a larger one. the probability of the risks involved varies by several
orders of magnitude: in about one in every 100 cases, there are minor side effects
such as rash, nausea, and slight fever; in around one in every 10,000 cases, there are
graver side effects such as high fever and febrile seizures, especially in conjunction
with measles and mumps vaccinations; and in roughly one in every 100,000 cases, there
are potentially fatal side effects such as invagination of the intestine. Other adverse
effects are so rare that it is virtually impossible to demonstrate a causal relationship. some
doctors suspect a link between flu vaccination and guillain-baré syndrome, a paralyzing inflammation of the nervous system. evaluation of such risks is difficult and controversial, and the frequency of the side effects must always be taken into account.
Using harmless and more common side effects as evidence of rare and dangerous
ones, as radical opponents of vaccination sometimes do, can quickly fog the issue.
On the other hand, it would be negligent to discount the risks of vaccination altogether.
13
01.09.11 13:55
The world is full of risks
what kind of risks do people face? An up-to-date answer
can be found in the 2011 global risk report published by
the Development works Alliance, a coalition of leading
german relief organizations in conjunction with the United
Nations University. its global risk index assigns a single
value per country, based on a whole variety of risks in terms
of both natural hazards and social vulnerability.
Canada
2.57
USA
3.72
Haiti
11.45
Guatemala
20.88
Global Risk Index
Vulnerability
Threats
Exposure
to natural
dangers
+
33%
33%
33%
Susceptibility
The likelihood of
suffering injury
in the event of an
incident
Lack of
response
capability
Lack of
capacity to
reduce the
negative impact
of a hazardous
event
Lack
of ability to
adjust
Lack of
long-term
strategies
to bring about a
transformation
of society
NATURE
SOCIETY
> transport services and Vienna’s General Hospital for the mass events. According to Germany’s Federal Ministry
of the Interior, more than 80 percent of
the country’s crucial infrastructure is
privately owned. That could prove fatal
in an emergency, as the private sector
isn’t always as meticulous as the state
in making emergency provisions. For
example, emergency generators are required by law for hospitals but not for gas
stations. In the event of a major power
outage, it would be impossible to pump
fuel from tanks underground. But then
where would we get the diesel for the
emergency generators?
The human factor
Medical treatment saves lives, but sometimes it can also prove fatal. Such inci-
14
Costa Rica
16.74
Peru
7.24
Brazil
4.26
Chile
11.97
dents are generally the result of human
error rather than a lack of knowledge.
Back in the mid-1990s, hospitals began
using simulated environments in which
medical professionals could train with
techniques for minimizing errors and
managing incidents in an authentic setting, such as the operating room, resuscitation room, or intensive care unit. “Our
guide was the aviation industry and the
training programs in use there,” says
Jutta Antwi-Schultze-Lebenstedt from the
Dräger Academy, which has been running
seminars for hospital personnel for eight
years now. For many decades, airline pilots have been required to undergo simulator training at regular intervals. By the
same token, safety in the healthcare profession depends very much on the routine
competence of the teams administering
treatment. For this reason, the seminars
organized by Antwi-Schultze-Lebenstedt
provide instruction not only in patient
treatment but also in decision-making,
delegation of responsibilities, teamwork,
communication, leadership skills, and situational awareness. The simulated incidents are video-recorded and followed by
a debriefing session, which provides participants with an opportunity to reflect
on what went well and where improvements could be made. By giving medical
professionals hands-on experience of critical situations, such seminars make a real
contribution toward reducing risks in the
healthcare sector.
Whatever the task at hand, allowance
should always be made for something that
can go wrong. At Dräger, Craig Jones,
who is originally from South Africa, is
01.09.11 13:56
Ri sk Fo c u s
Greece
7.09
Russian Federation 3.56
Germany 2.96
Japan 11.13
cambodia 16.58
Philippines 24.32
Pakistan 7.84
Niger 14.03
Bangladesh 17.45
India 7.68
Zimbabwe 9.63
Papua New Guinea 15.45
Vanuatu 32.00
Indonesia 11.69
Madagascar 14.46
Australia 4.28
New Zealand 4.28
Data: UNU-eHs, baseD ON tHe PReview glObal Risk Data PlatfORm, cResis, ciesiN, aND glObal Databases; fOR a DetaileD DescRiPtiON, see www.weltRisikObeRicHt.De
responsible for the practice of project
management on a group-wide basis. It’s
his job – together with a team of employees spread across many departments
and regions – to establish uniform and
professional procedures governing project management. As Jones explains, this
is not an easy assignment. “Sometimes
people don’t really understand the concept of risk. So when I ask them about
the risks involved in their project, they
come up with answers like ‘We’re running late.’ But that’s not a risk. At most,
you can say it’s the consequence of a risk.”
Jones teaches project managers how to
identify risks and assess their probability.
First of all, this means classifying
risks according to whether they are
strategic, operational, unforeseeable,
or risks of change. All have an influ-
ence on people, processes, finances,
and interfaces. Each risk is assessed,
an emergency plan is drawn up, and
each of these processes is regularly reviewed and updated during the project.
Obviously, this is only possible to the extent that risks can be foreseen. “A hacker
attack or theft of data are foreseeable
risks,” explains Jones. But what about
the kind of risks that can’t be anticipated and for which it is impossible to
draw up a concrete response? Even in
this case, it is still possible to prepare for
them by assigning responsibilities and
establishing lines of communication.
Managing the risks of interconnectivity In the past people simply weren’t confronted with events similar to those
of the present day: a financial crash
that can race like wildfire through
the world’s stock markets in only a
matter of hours, or epidemics that
spread around the whole world in
days. The increasing interconnectivity
of our world today not only generates
new risks; it also creates new ways of
managing them. Jones recommends
a company-wide digital risk-management system that will provide a resource for project managers, enabling
them to keep a log of their risk analyses and to look up how others have
dealt with comparable risks. By networking our methods and practices
for dealing with risk, we will no longer need to rely on the remedies bequeathed to us by our ancestors in the
Stone Age.
Tobias Hürter
15
01.09.11 13:56
En ErgY c Av erN StO r Age
O
peration Squirrel
even in times of emergency, countries must be able to ensure energy supplies for a specified period of time.
in northern germany, Oil and gaS are stored in man-made salt caverns created deep underground.
A
ccording to the Roman historian
Tacitus, Frisians don’t sing – Frisia non cantat. Whatever truth
there may be in his words, the blackand-white cows here definitely moo. Just
beneath the lush pasture where some of
them are peacefully grazing are a few
layers of peat, followed by around 700
meters of the best halite – or rock salt,
as it’s commonly known. Hans Joachim
Schweinsberg picks up an inch-thick
section of a drill core. Ten centimeters in diameter, it weighs 406 grams.
“This salt was precipitated from the sea
that covered what is now the North German Plain about 240 million years ago,”
he explains. Schweinsberg – a geologist
by profession – works for IVG Caverns
where he is director of the Etzel Cavern Information Center. Drill cores like
this show whether the rock is suitable
for the company’s purposes, which is to
create large caverns for storing oil and
natural gas.
PhOtOgrAPhy: NilS SchiffhAuer
Caverns – prize pieces of real estate
Oil and gas are stored beneath the lush green pastureland of East Frisia.
16
EN_16-19_Kavernenspeicher.indd 16
Here in the municipality of Friedeburg,
the nearest big town is Wilhelmshaven where the new JadeWeserPort – Germany’s only deepwater container harbor that doesn’t depend on the tide – will
soon be helping to offset a period of
industrial decline and cutbacks in the
German navy. IVG Caverns is already
making a big contribution to this process of economic regeneration. In fact,
around half of the company’s annual
investment of 100 million euros remains
within a radius of 70 kilometers. At peak
times this generates more than 1,000
limited contract jobs in the area and
according to Manfred Wohlers, Managing Director of the Etzel cavern facility,
at least 200 will become permanent if
there is further expansion.
As Wohlers explains, the cavern facility is a prize asset in the portfolio of IVG
Immobilien AG. One of Europe’s major
real estate companies, IVG Immobilien manages assets valued at over 22
billion euros, including several office
properties with a total market value
of 4.3 billion euros. The system of caverns extends beneath the fields of Etzel.
Each is best compared to a carrot suspended vertically at a depth starting at
1,000 meters and ending at somewhere
between 1,400 and 1,700 meters. This
unusual piece of real estate provides
up to 650,000 cubic meters of space
for storing oil or natural gas, the latter
pressurized at up to 200 bars. Deposited in the 52 caverns – up to 144 are
planned in all – is a large share of Germany’s energy reserves. These were
first accumulated in the mid-1960s. In
1950 coal and lignite from domestic
production still met around 88 percent
of Germany’s energy needs. By 1966,
oil already accounted for almost 46 percent of the country’s energy supplies,
following economic growth and a rapid expansion of motorized transport.
Only 10 percent of this was produced at
home with almost 70 percent coming
from OPEC. Back then the world was
in the grip of the Cold War and memo-
01.09.11 13:57
Safety first: Bernhard Hamphoff from Dräger measures a pipe flange to ensure there are no gas leaks.
ries of the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949
were still painfully fresh. While the city
was kept supplied with food and fuel
for almost a year during the blockade,
thanks to an airlift involving 200,000
flights, that would have been impossible for the whole country. The outbreak
of the Korean War in 1950 showed how
vulnerable the global flow of financial
resources and raw materials were to the
geopolitical forces. By 1964 the Americans had entered Vietnam.
For the German government, which
at the time had already launched “Oper-
ation Squirrel” in 1961, urging households to stock emergency supplies was a
clear indication of the necessity to build
up the country’s strategic petroleum
reserves (SPR). Mandatory stockpiling
was implemented in 1966, a measure
that prompted discussion throughout >
17
01.09.11 13:57
The leases for these unusual pieces of
real estate run for at least 30 years
> Europe. As the degree of oil dependency increased, so too has the length of
time that national reserves must be able
to last. In Germany this has risen from
45 days to 90 days, but in actual practice the time period is now the equivalent
of 145 days. South Korea holds the world’s
largest SPR, enough to cover 185 days.
Safely stored deep
underground
Such crucial reserves require safe storage. Above-ground facilities, in addition
to being vulnerable to attack, also occupy
a large area and are comparatively expensive. In 1970 the German government
commissioned the Bonn-based company
Industrieverwaltungsgesellschaft (IVG),
which then was still state-owned, to provide storage for 10 million barrels of petroleum at a single location. Etzel was
selected for its combination of favorable
conditions. It sits above a salt dome ideally
suited for creating caverns and it is close
to not only the deepwater harbor of Wilhelmshaven where oil tankers dock but
also to the North Sea which provides the
seawater required to flush out the caverns
from the rock salt.
When test drilling is completed, the main
borehole is sunk through cap rock and
at least 200 meters of salt. Two concentric pipes, one inside the other, are sunk
into this hole: The so-called production
string, 9 5/8 inches in diameter, pumps
in seawater and a 7-inch pipe inserted
inside is used to discharge the brine.
A process known as Solution Mining is
used to form the cavern. Water from the
North Sea, with a salt content of around
30 grams per liter, is flushed into the
hole at a pressure of between 30 and 60
bars where it dissolves up to 300 grams
of rock salt per liter. Sixteen pumps at the
main pumping station supply as many as
6,000 cubic meters of seawater an hour
for this purpose. The resulting brine is
then cleaned and pumped back along a
1.1-meter diameter pipeline to Wilhelmshaven, 25 kilometers away, where it discharges into the North Sea from the Niedersachsenbrücke pier.
To flush out a cavern, around eight
times its volume in seawater is needed.
“And around three and a half years, plus
capital expenditure of between 15 and 20
million euros,” adds Wohlers. Drilling
only begins when the company has a cus-
Gas safety from day one
From the earliest days of ivg caverns, mobile and stationary gas detection
systems from Dräger have protected employees and the surrounding
area. today’s mobile systems largely feature devices from the x-am 3000,
5000, and 7000 series, whereas the stationary gas detection systems –
e.g., for gas venting – employ, for example, open-path systems and Polytron
measuring heads.
18
tomer for a new cavern. Leases with the
energy companies run for 30 years and
can be extended. The utilities are responsible for construction and operation of
the above-ground gas compression plant,
while the caverns are the responsibility
of IVG Caverns, in line with German mining law. To create the caverns, a number of directional drillings are undertaken from a central location. For reasons
of stability, salt caverns must be separated by a distance of around 300 meters.
Prepared for future shifts
in energy policy
The salt dome beneath Etzel is ideal for
a range of uses. Salt caverns provide hermetically sealed storage for not only oil
but also gas, which is stored in the same
type of cavern at a pressure of up to 200
bars. Maintenance and repair needs are
monitored by means of sophisticated
measuring systems (see the box) – to prevent a potentially catastrophic buildup
of explosive gases. The gas caverns are
operated at a pressure of at least 60 to
80 bars. This, as Schweinsberg explains,
“prevents the caverns from slowly closing up – what we call convergence.”
The caverns are subject to enormous geomechanical forces and even at
a depth of 1,500 meters the temperature
is already 55 °C. Under these conditions
salt becomes plastic and starts to flow,
although very slowly. Does this convergence have any effects at the surface? “In
principle, yes,” says Schweinsberg, “and
we monitor it very closely.” In practice,
the ground at the imaginary center of the
cavern system has sunk by all of 26 centi-
01.09.11 13:57
c Av e rN StOr Age EnE rgY
further information online, including:
Product information
www.draeger.com/103/gas
Piping is the only sign of the cavern many meters underground.
Pipes, valves, and pressure gauges hold the gas in check.
PhOtOgrAPhy: NilS SchiffhAuer (2), ivg cAverNS (2)
meters over the last 35 years. At the edges however, this is just a couple of centimeters or even millimeters which is well
short of what would become noticeable
on buildings or lead to the subsidence
familiar to people who live in areas where
there is or has been coal mining. And are
there other consequences? “We communicate very openly with the general public,” says Press Officer Armin Garbe, as
he prepares to meet a group of women from the area who have cycled over
to the information center. No questions
are off limits. According to Garbe, all the
restrictions on noise and light emissions
are adhered to and the seawater pumped
back into the North Sea has substantially
less than the maximum allowed concentration of pollutants.
What’s more, the operation creates jobs with a future. What began as
a storage site for the nation’s petroleum
reserves – almost one third of Germany’s SPR is still held here – is now getting a further boost from the gas industry. “And we’re not worried about the
future,” says Wohlers, because energy
policy shifts won’t make the caverns
obsolete. As he explains, potential uses
include energy storage in the form of
pressurized air. Even more tempting
for Wohlers is the prospect of synthesizing methane from hydrogen and CO2.
“The whole infrastructure, right up to
the consumer, could then more or less
stay as it is.”
nils Schiffhauer
The caverns are created using drill strings of pipes bolted together.
A look down below: A cross-section image depicting o
il and gas caverns in Etzel, East Frisia, germany.
19
01.09.11 13:57
In t er lo c k X t
S h ippin g cO mpan ieS
phOtOgraphy: hOyer gmbh
the transport
of hazardous substances,
including chemicals, is
subject to strict egulations.
20
EN_20-23_Speditionen.indd 20
01.09.11 13:58
Sh i ppi n g co m pa n i eS Alc o ho l In t er lo c k
Z
ero tolerance on europe’s roads
Shipping companies have a big responsibility, especially when their business is transporting hazardous
goods in tank containers or tanker trailers. one of europe’s biggest operators in this sector is the
hamburg-based hoyer group. Since mid-2010, 30 of the company’s trucks have been equipped with
BreAth-Alcohol VehIcle ImmoBIlIZers – and plans call for more to follow.
M
atthias Krohn makes fast work of
the formalities: a powerful handshake, followed by an offer of his
business card and a cup of black coffee.
Krohn isn’t a man for small talk. When he
speaks, it’s because he has something to
say. And when he does express himself, he
does so in a loud, clear, candid voice that
comes from 19 years of professional experience. His business card bears the title of
fleet manager. And that means, as he explains, practically everything on wheels.
A team of 400 drivers in Germany Krohn, who is in his mid-40s, works for the
business unit Hoyer Chemilog. His particular responsibility is for the unit’s German vehicle fleet, which comprises 300
tractor units, 350 container chassis, and
250 tanker trailers. A crew of around 400
drivers transports just about everything
in the liquid chemicals market throughout all of Europe. The company’s own database lists over 20,000 products. These
include polyols, which are found in antifreeze agents, for example, and also lubricants, solvents, and isocyanates. The latter
are highly toxic and used in the manufacture of such things as insecticides.
Hazardous goods account for about
half of the freight transported by Hoyer
Chemilog. Such products pose a particular challenge for fleet manager Krohn
and his team. Vehicle type, for example, is
a crucial factor. “Many hazardous goods
have to be loaded and unloaded via a top
inlet/outlet rather than a bottom one,”
he explains, adding that there are numerous variations in tanker design, sealants,
Dräger review 103 | october 2011
k
ing of the road: matthias krohn is fleet manager for hoyer chemilog. tanks, and special alloys and coatings. By
the same token, it’s also essential to recruit the right kind of driver. “We specifically look for people with lots of experience in the transport of hazardous
goods,” Krohn says. Drivers are subject
to frequent occupational health checks
and must complete the legally required
programs of basic and advanced training. And, for the worst-case scenario, they
have to learn to use masks, filters, and
personal protective equipment.
This is obviously a tightly regulated
sector. What’s more, today’s truck drivers are expected and required to be able
to do a lot more than just drive the vehicles. Practically every minute of their
working life is subject to a mass of regulations, all of which they have to know.
These include environmental directives
governing proper handling of hazardous
goods, not to mention the road traffic
laws. Familiarity with both has to be demonstrated at regular intervals. In return,
drivers are authorized to transport hazardous goods in accordance with the European Agreement concerning the Inter-
national Carriage of Dangerous Goods by
Road, commonly known as ADR (Accord
européen relatif au transport international des marchandises dangereuses par
route). This regularly updated agreement
specifies strict regulations regarding the
packaging, labeling, and proper securing
of hazardous goods for the purposes of
road transport.
Yet times have changed in the industry.
Truck tires have become bigger, and profit
margins smaller. The strong demand for
fuel throughout Europe, combined with
falling reserves in the U.S., is just one of
the factors driving up costs in the industry. “If you look at the price of diesel today, it’s no wonder shippers are having
problems earning money,” says Krohn of
the current market situation. And it’s not
surprising that companies are looking for
ways to cut costs and improve efficiency.
But there’s one area in which Hoyer will
never compromise: safety. “Our trucks,”
says Krohn, “are like business cards on
wheels. They have our company name on
them, not the name of the driver. If something happens, it’s our responsibility – and
that’s in full public view.”
like the rest of society Hoyer takes this responsibility very seriously. In recent decades, the company
has invested continuously in new systems, infrastructure, equipment, and
employee training in order to ensure
conformity to the highest standards of
safety, health, environmental, and quality (“SHEQ”), and to eliminate accidents, incidents, and complaints. This >
21
01.09.11 13:58
What’s the point of having the latest technology,
if the driver has been drinking alcohol?
22
Breath-alcohol vehicle immobilizer: First blow, then go.
p
hotography: hoyEr gmbh
> includes the company’s zero tolerance
policy when it comes to being under the
effects of alcohol while on duty. Alcohol
and the often underestimated dangers of
residual alcohol in the blood are a risk
factor in many jobs. “Truck drivers are
no different than the rest of society,” says
Krohn. But there is a major difference,
he adds: “A truck driver isn’t sitting at a
supermarket checkout; he’s at the wheel
of a rig with 25 tons of hazardous goods
on board, rolling down busy roads.”
The World Health Organization
(WHO) estimates that 2.5 million people
die annually from the effects of alcohol
consumption, including road-traffic accidents. To help counteract this scourge,
Hoyer conducts spot checks for alcohol
consumption, not only at its locations but
also en route. The introduction of tests
was made possible by a works agreement,
which applies not only to drivers but also
to commercial employees. This ensures
that the policy enjoys widespread acceptance. “It prevents the creation of a twotier system,” Krohn explains. Equality in
the workplace is a persuasive argument,
in addition to being a fundamental element of German law. In addition, the
medical examinations for new drivers include alcohol and drug tests.
It’s more difficult to test drivers once
they have left the depot, of course, particularly if they are on international runs.
The need for efficiency alone rules out
the possibility of constantly shadowing
them on their routes. For this and other
reasons, last year Hoyer equipped 30 of its
vehicles with the Dräger Interlock XT*,
a breath-alcohol measuring instrument
Hazardous goods: The contents of a tank container are precisely declared.
* For law enforcement purposes only in the U.S.; including state administrative and judicial process.
01.09.11 13:58
Sh i ppi n g co m pa n i eS Alc o ho l In t er lo c k
that features a vehicle immobilizer. The
handheld unit is installed just like a cell
phone and contains an electrochemical
sensor that measures only alcohol. So it
isn’t responsive to other gases, such as
acetone, which can be exhaled by diabetics. This ensures that the system won’t
immobilize the vehicle for the wrong
reasons. If the breath-alcohol reading is
negative, the control unit installed beneath the dashboard doesn’t block the
starter mechanism. As soon as the ignition key is turned, the device is automatically activated. After only a few seconds,
the Interlock XT requests a breath sample from the driver via the mouthpiece
of the handheld unit. If the result of the
breath-alcohol test is acceptable, the system releases the starter mechanism and
the truck can be driven away.
Hoyer is planning to double the number of Interlock XTs in its fleet by the
end of 2011 and equip all of its vehicles
with the immobilizers in the medium
term. With each unit costing in excess
of 1,000 euros, such an investment requires careful consideration. However,
a state-sponsored program called “Deminimis” supports freight companies
with investments intended to increase
safety and protect the environment. This
program has helped Hoyer to pay a large
share of the costs for the Interlock units.
Drivers were initially skeptical, and
some complained about having a “spy in
the cab.” Others were worried that the devices would be too complicated, Krohn recalls. But that was soon forgotten once the
units had been installed and the drivers
had received training. Now, according to
Dräger review 103 | october 2011
Krohn, the system is very much accepted,
since it helps to screen out “bad apples.”
The Interlock XT also records any unsuccessful attempts to start the engine, for
purposes of later analysis.
the dangers of tolerance
But what happens if the Interlock test is
positive? Krohn explains that the driver
has two choices: “Wait until the body has
broken down the residual alcohol – provided there isn’t a fixed deadline to
meet – or contact his logistics manager
immediately.” This is followed by a meeting with human resources, which can
also result in an official warning. In the
event of a recurrence, the driver’s employment is immediately terminated. Before it comes to that, however, support
is offered. “If a driver admits to having
an alcohol problem and needs help, we
won’t just throw him out.”
Krohn’s advice to employers thinking about installing breath-alcohol immobilizers is to show zero tolerance for
alcohol at the wheel: “What’s the point
of having the very latest technology, if
you don’t have the Interlock and your
driver’s weaving across the road with a
blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05 percent?” he asks.
However, drivers shouldn’t be misled
into thinking that the immobilizer provides them with a bill of sobriety. “If the
police request a breath sample and the
driver is above the legal limit, then he
has a lot of explaining to do,” says Krohn.
“When all is said and done, each individual must take responsibility for his own
actions.”
Björn Wölke
“We are born optimists”
thomAs hoyer,
chairman of the advisory
board of the hoyer group,
discusses the market for
the transport of hazardous
goods and the challen
ges that the industry will
face in the future.
how do you see the industry developing in the future?
there’s only limited potential for growth
in the market for transporting hazardous
goods in europe and the U.S., unlike the
situation in asia. in europe the market is
extremely fragmented. what we urgently
need is consolidation or, in other words,
competition that’s less fierce. a reason
able degree of consolidation would ensure
us an appropriate return. only those
companies with such an appropriate return
will be prepared to invest in safety.
What are the challenges facing the industry? And where are the opportunities and the risks? as a family company, we are born optimists
with a healthy dose of realism. it’s entire
ly up to us to seize the market opportunities
that arise. we see a risk in the rise of
buyer power among our customers in the
chemicals industry, where there has al
ready been a consolidation that is still to
come in our sector. then again, it’s up
to us to convince our customers that only
a large and financially strong company
offering comprehensive geographical cover
age can guarantee safe transport.
23
01.09.11 13:58
An e s t he si A r a Di at iO n t h e r ap y
tumor therapy: Protons on target
chemotherapy and radiation therapy are used to stop tumors from growing. proton beams offer a new fORM Of RADiAtiOn theRAPY that promises to be less harmful and more precise than anything ever used before.
the rinecker proton therapy center operates one of the most advanced proton therapy facilities in the world.
B
oy, does that thing turn slowly!
That’s often the reaction of patients when they see how the
aiming device moves just a few centimeters in the radiation therapy room at the
Rinecker Proton Therapy Center (RPTC)
in Munich. “But then they’re very surprised when we show them the apparatus behind the device, and they see how
quickly that moves,” says Dr. Morten Eckermann, Chief Anesthesiologist at the private clinic. The apparatus that actually
moves – known as a gantry – is 11 meters
in diameter and weighs approximately 150
tons. Its purpose is to mount a three-dimensional assault on hidden tumors, attacking them in a manner that does as little harm to the body as possible.
“What we have here,” says the clinic’s
Medical Director, Dr. Manfred Herbst, “is
the world’s most modern device for inhibiting the growth of cancerous tumors – or
even for destroying them completely – using a proton beam in a scanning procedure.” Herbst, an internal medicine and
radiation therapy specialist, wanted to introduce this technology at a different hospital back in the 1990s. It took a few more
years for the advanced approach to gain
a foothold, however, and it was Dr. Hans
Rinecker who would eventually establish
the first clinical proton irradiation therapy center in Europe.
A 3D battle against malignant DnA
Alongside chemotherapy and traditional
x-ray treatment, proton therapy provides
physicians with yet another weapon for destroying the genetic information (DNA) of
a tumor and preventing its cells from mul-
24
EN_24-27_Strahlentherapie.indd 24
tiplying. Such procedures cause tumors to
stop growing and their irradiated cells to
denature. Ideally, what’s left behind is a
type of scar tissue that doesn’t harm or inhibit the patient in any way.
DNA is destroyed at the RPTC with the
help of protons – the positively charged
components of hydrogen nuclei. Protons,
which were discovered in 1920 by the
New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest
Rutherford, account for most of the cosmic
radiation around us. Today, they are brought
to near-light speeds in particle accelerators in order to study the nature of matter.
how physics benefits medicine
Proton therapy is based on nuclear research, which achieved major advances as
a result of the development of the atomic
bomb in the 1940s, especially in the U.S.
Like Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a German
physicist who discovered x-rays in 1895, scientists in the mid-20th century were faced
with a “completely new type of radiation”
(see Dräger Review 102; p. 36 ff.) whose
benefits and potential dangers were virtually impossible to foresee at the time. One
of the first and most important steps that
would eventually lead to today’s proton
therapy was taken by Robert R. Wilson, an
American physicist. Wilson was working at
Los Alamos, a nuclear research site in New
Mexico, which was equipped with the first
particle accelerator (cyclotron) capable of
accelerating protons to a speed that would
enable them to penetrate human tissue.
In 1946, Wilson drew up a proposal
to “acquaint doctors and biologists with
several of the physical attributes of these
beams and their possible applications.” >
A treatment room with aiming device (gantry): One of four identical rooms at the Rinecker Proton therapy Center.
01.09.11 14:00
PhOtOgraPhy: rPtc Munich
The first clinical
proton therapy
center in Europe:
The Rinecker
Proton Therapy
Center in Munich.
25
01.09.11 14:01
photogRaphy: Rptc Munich
An e s t he si A R adi at io n t h e R ap y
Left: the proton beam source – a superconducting cyclotron. to the right of the center of the image is the beam emission tube, which disappears into the complex beam guidance structure. At right: A patient rests on the contoured couch while awaiting treatment. there can be no movement during the treatment process, as the proton beam must be guided precisely to the tumor.
> And the beams were very special indeed:
Their characteristic Bragg peak (see
graphic) seems to contradict human in‑
tuition – but it is this particular attribute
that makes proton beams very suitable for
radiation therapy. The key to determine is
the point on the beam’s passage through
the body at which it releases the greatest
amount of energy. In an ideal scenario,
this energy should be concentrated on the
tumor and leave surrounding healthy tis‑
sue largely untouched.
However, ionizing radiation – such as
x‑rays and proton beams – behave differ‑
ently in the body than a beam of light does
in the air: The latter’s energy diminishes
according to the square of the distance it
has travelled. X‑rays release their peak en‑
ergy dose immediately beneath the skin.
Then, like light beams, they grow contin‑
ually weaker as they move farther through
tissue. This means that they cause more
damage to healthy tissue on their way to
the tumor than they do to the cancer it‑
self. “That’s what causes all the severe
side effects,” says Herbst, “and it’s also
why x‑ray treatments must be carried out
repeatedly with relatively low doses of ra‑
diation, in order to give healthy tissue a
chance to recover in between sessions.”
Unlike x‑rays, however, the proton
beam increases its energy output to a
peak value at the end of its path to the tu‑
mor. The length of this path into the body
is determined by the energy to which the
beam has been accelerated. The energy
peak acts like a sharp scalpel at the precise
location where it’s needed. The procedure
used in Munich is even more sophisti‑
cated. It scans the tumor three‑dimension‑
26
ally at a precision of greater than one mil‑
limeter. “With this procedure, we scan the
tumor line‑for‑line with the beam, which
can be switched on or off within just 250
microseconds,” explains Dr. Martin Hill‑
brand, a Medical Physicist at the Munich
center. Currently, the field covered by
one such scan measures 25 x 25 centime‑
ters, but this value will be increasing in
the near future. Since the scanning pro‑
cess is three‑dimensional, each scan can
be seen as a single slice, with each suc‑
cessive slice covering a different area at a
different penetration depth. This enables
the volume irradiated to conform very pre‑
cisely to the three‑dimensional form of the
tumor, without causing any great damage
to the surrounding healthy tissue.
smaller than a champagne bubble
The proton beam is generated in a super‑
conducting particle accelerator whose
equipment and technology take up four
floors at the RPTC. “We extract the pro‑
tons from hydrogen gas, accelerate them
to 60 percent of the speed of light, and
send them to one of the five therapy rooms
through vacuum pipes,” Eckermann ex‑
plains. “The amount of hydrogen gas
required to carry out the treatment is
smaller than a single champagne bubble.”
The proton beam has a maximum energy
of 250 megaelectron volts (MeV) [by com‑
parison, the fission products created when
an atomic nucleus is split have a kinetic
energy value of approximately 200 MeV].
A downstream module reduces this energy
output to the value required for the pene‑
tration depth called for by the therapy plan,
which can be as much as 38 centimeters.
Four of the therapy rooms situated
behind walls made of special concrete
several meters thick are designed to en‑
sure that the gantry (which has its own
nozzle for delivering the proton beams)
can be rotated 360 degrees around the
patient. The sides of the gantry contain
digital x‑ray screens that monitor the po‑
sition of the patient on the contoured
couch. The fifth treatment room has a
fixed‑beam therapy station for treatment
of eye and head regions. “This combina‑
tion of a cyclotron and five therapy rooms
enables us to make good use of the radi‑
ation source’s capacity without generat‑
ing any time pressure,” says Eckermann.
In his capacity as an anesthesiologist,
Eckermann is also responsible for ensuring
that target tumors in organs which move
with respiration don’t change position dur‑
ing irradiation: “We’re dealing with dis‑
tances of millimeters here, and sudden
breaths can cause some organs to shift by as
much as 1.5 centimeters.” His department
also handles pediatric anesthesia. “We use
the Fabius Tiro anesthesia workstation
from Dräger,” Eckermann explains. “The
system has been verified to function per‑
fectly in therapy rooms where strong elec‑
tromagnetic fields are generated thanks to
focusing and auxiliary magnets that guide
the proton beams.” Eckermann has per‑
formed anesthesia on more than 1,300
patients in the two years since the RPTC
went into operation – and there hasn’t been
a single complication.
When it comes to therapy planning,
doctors and physicists cooperate closely.
It starts with informative and confidence‑
building discussions with patients. The
dRägeR Review 103 | octobeR 2011
01.09.11 14:01
R A D I AT I O N T HE R A P Y
Tumor
1
ANE S T HE S I A
BRAGG PEAK
Absorbed dose
X-rays
(linear accelerator 15 MV)
Protons
190 MeV kinetic energy
= 25 cm penetration depth
BEAM DIRECTION
actual planning is done with the help of a
very high-resolution computer tomograph
unit. In exceptional cases, a 1.5-tesla MRT
is used as well. Sometimes it’s also necessary as well to carry out a positron-emission tomography (PET) procedure in order to ensure more detailed planning. The
examinations produce 3D images of impressive resolution which the radiology
team can use to guide the proton beam.
GRAPHIC: PICFOUR; SOURCE: RPTC
Fewer side effects
Depending on the diagnosis and the patient’s condition, the treatment is conducted over an average of 18 sessions. “The
patient usually needs to set aside a little
more than 30 minutes for each session,
including preparation,” says Herbst, “but
the completely painless irradiation process
only takes around 60 seconds.” That’s half
the number of sessions required for x-ray
treatments. What’s more, side effects such
as severe diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and
loss of saliva and appetite virtually never
occur. Patients can even work between
treatment sessions, and there’s generally
no need for post-treatment rehabilitation.
Despite the benefits it offers, proton
therapy in Europe is still in its infancy,
unlike the situation in the U.S. In Europe,
proton radiation treatment currently costs
three times more than an x-ray procedure.
“Nevertheless, focusing solely on costs is
one-sided and ignores many factors, including side effects, life expectancy, and
subsequent complications,” says Herbst.
The latter can be very problematic – especially for children: x-rays can permanently
damage their organs, which are still developing and therefore are particularly
DRÄGER REVIEW 103 | OCTOBER 2011
0
0
10
20
30
40
Penetration (cm)
Local dose profile of proton penetration of the body. This graph shows that unlike
x-rays, protons release the highest energy dose when they reach the end of their path.
The Bragg peak: At the right spot
Radiation therapy leverages the ionizing effect of energy-rich particle beams:
Charged particles such as protons release energy as they follow their path through body
tissue. This energy removes electrons from tissue molecules, producing ions that
damage the cells’ genetic information – their DNA. As the energy of the protons diminishes
along their path, the amount of energy they release per unit of distance increases.
This “braking effect” is particularly strong at the end, where it takes a virtually exponential
form known as the “Bragg peak.” The sharpness of this peak depends on keeping
the proton beam focused with very high precision along its entire path through the tissue.
The Bragg peak was discovered in 1903 by William Henry Bragg, a British physicist.
In 1915, Bragg – together with his son Lawrence – was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics
for work with x-rays.
sensitive. Another benefit is that the scalpel-like proton beam shape used to treat
certain types of brain and eye tumors minimizes the risk of impairing important
functions of the body and the brain.
Thus it should come as no surprise
that the Rinecker Proton Therapy Center
is attracting a lot of patients from all over
Europe. Furthermore, it seems to be the
case that a higher life expectancy, as well
as greater affluence, increase the risk of
getting cancer. This will intensify efforts
to develop new strategies for fighting cancer. Physical considerations alone might
very well enhance the role to be played by
proton beams in Europe in the future. But
today, the Munich center stands alone in
helping patients benefit from its cuttingedge technology: “With a proton beam
system, it takes about four to five years
from the initial planning stages to use of
the system on the first patients,” says
Herbst, who knows this from his own
experience.
Nils Schiffhauer
Further information online, including:
An interview with Dr. Morten
Eckermann, who discusses his experiences with the new therapy technique.
www.draeger.com/103/proton
27
01.09.11 14:01
The Director Within
PhOtOgraPhY: get t Y imageS
“Sweet sleep! Like the purest happiness, thou comest most willingly,” wrote goethe.
“thou dost loosen the knots of earnest thoughts, dost mingle all images of joy
and of sorrow.” Dreaming is soothing to the soul, a caress from the subconscious.
For intensive care patients, it can be quite the opposite. Yet even here, sleep
is a chance to come to terms with physical trauma and the body’s vulnerability.
Dreams
reassemble
fragments
of reality. This
can be either
beneficial or
burdensome.
28
EN_28-31_Traum.indd 28
01.09.11 14:02
D re a m rese a rch S leep
deemed her condition too critical to
return her straight back to reality once
the anesthetic had worn off. According
to one study, 37 percent of patients who
lose consciousness following an accident
or some other trauma enter an oneiroid
state. For long-term ventilated patients,
that figure is well over 90 percent. Typical dreams in this state involve being
pursued or riding through an endless
tunnel on a motorbike. Doctors can
mutate into captains or butchers, and
patients even tell of having witnessed relatives being shot. Meanwhile, those very
same family members sit by their bedside
and hope and pray that their loved ones
will not only awaken – indeed, physiologically speaking, most of them are already
awake – but also arrive back in reality.
T
he sound of waves, a babble of
voices, barked commands. Metallic clattering, the smell of diesel.
It is the 21st day at sea, the last before
landfall. Angelika Däne is lying immobile in her bed on Ward 19 of the University Hospital in Münster. Her eyes
are fixed upon the ceiling as the boat
runs into harbor and slowly returns her
to reality. In the three weeks since her
heart transplant, she has been a prisoner of her dreams, captive in a kind of twilight world.
The oneiroid state is what scientists
call the dreamlike, hallucinatory condition in which patients involuntarily substitute an imaginary world for the reality of their life-threatening illness. “I was
absolutely sure I was on a boat. The captain and the crew were there, I could feel
the engines throbbing, and we were in
heavy seas. It wasn’t clear at all whether
we were ever going to get off,” explains
the 53-year-old. Although her body had
already won the physical battle against
multiple organ failure, her mind still
Three years later, Angelika Däne is sitting in the fourth row of the Pumpenhaus
Theater in Münster, watching actors recreate the dreamlike experiences of hearttransplant patients in intensive care. The
play, titled SOMNIA, is being staged by
the drama group Theater Operation. The
low hum of medical equipment is punctuated by the rhythmic sound of a ventilator from Dräger inflating and deflating a balloon: whoosh, thump; whoosh,
thump. Four actors dressed in hospital
smocks, their legs bare, suffer hallucinations, wait in vain for a diagnosis, and
exercise their muscles grown flabby from
being in bed too long. Perched on narrow gurneys specially constructed for
Theater Operation
PhOtOgraPhy: achim hehN
physician and dramatist Tuğsal Moğul: Showing what often gets forgotten in the intensive care unit. Stage dreams
the stage, they are each attended to in
turn by Sister Agnieszka. Tuğsal Moğul,
the director of the play, is in his element.
As an intensive care physician who has
also completed drama training, he is an
expert in every sense. “My aim was to
focus on what often gets forgotten in the
intensive care unit: the mental wellbeing of patients,” explains the 42-yearold. “In the day-to-day hospital routine,
everyone concentrates on vital parameters and pain control. But there’s little
time to pay attention to what patients
are actually going through or what they
believe they are going through.”
It is a world far removed from logical
thought and rational considerations, in
which patients attempt to come to terms
with life in intensive care. In a condition known as brief reactive psychosis,
they experience semiconsciousness or
twilight states and suffer from hallucinations or delusions. To understand the
oneiroid state, we need to take a closer
look at the phenomenon of dreaming.
Dreams are part of the normal rhythms >
tuğsal moğul was born in beckum, germany, the son of turkish immigrants, in 1969.
after medical studies and further training to become an anesthesiologist, he studied
acting at hanover’s University of music, Drama and media. since then, he has played
various roles in theaters in germany, while also continuing to work as a physician
in intensive care medicine. the drama group theater Operation, which was founded in
2007, enables him to combine both interests. Following his debut work halbstarke
halbgötter, which looks at the work of doctors in the operating room, sOmNia focuses
on the fate of patients in intensive care.
29
01.09.11 14:02
Dreams provide a direct route to the unconscious –
which can help to solve problems
> of sleep and serve to ramp down consciousness. This in fact is the difference
between an oneiroid state and normal
dreaming. In the former, consciousness is not inactive and still calls the
shots. “Strictly speaking, in today’s scientific terminology a dream state is anything in which the unconscious plays a
greater role than the conscious mind,”
explains Klausbernd Vollmar, psychologist, dream researcher, and author. Jürgen Zulley, Professor of Biological Psychology at the Regensburg University
and District Hospital’s Center of Sleep
Medicine, describes sleep as “interior
renovation” and a “highly active state
of rest” in which there is a substantial
reduction of contact with the outside
world, including reactions to stimuli.
“The mind lowers the blinds, but there’s
a lot of stuff happening inside,” says Zulley. As he explains, the organism and the
brain remain active in sleep while the
experiences of the day are processed and
stored.
Dreams help us process experience and problems. According to Vollmar, dreams interrupt sleep every one
and a half hours or so. In the EU, people sleep on average 7.5 hours and therefore dream around five times a night.
“Dreams have a learning function.
Things that haven’t worked out during
the day get deleted, and other things
that we haven’t consciously registered
are processed and then linked to other
experiences,” Vollmar explains. Night
after night, this personal therapist drops
by, free of charge, and helps us review
the things we haven’t noticed during the
30
day. This enables us to focus on problem
areas and deal with them creatively.
“Intellectual people involved in creative
work need a lot more sleep than those
doing manual labor,” says Vollmar. And
they get their inspiration and capacity
for thought from dreams. As he explains,
people who are short of sleep are only
able to function in conventional spheres
and lack the capacity to make inventive
associations. In this case, “the mind falls
back on what it knows.”
Conducting internal repairs
Dreams are especially useful when
they can be recalled. In fact, a process of renewal also takes place even if
they remain unnoticed. But in order to
extract the full creative potential from
dreams, it helps to develop strategies
that aid their recall. “A dream you can’t
remember is like an unread book. It has
a certain effect, but you don’t get the
full benefit from it,” says Vollmar, who
relates that Albert Einstein, in common
with many other scientists, wrote down
all his dreams.
When it comes to solving problems,
according to Vollmar, dreams are the easiest way to get in touch with the unconscious. “Where id was, there ego shall
be,” wrote Sigmund Freud, one of the first
great sleep researchers and interpreters
of dreams in the 1920s. By this, he meant
the process by which the unconscious
becomes conscious – something particularly important for people plagued by
nightmares. “Nightmares are the sledgehammers of the soul,” says Vollmar. “Not
every dream needs detailed interpreting,
but nightmares definitely do.” This, he
says, is a big opportunity to find out things
about yourself and to heal your own mind.
In the case of comatose dreams, a
distinction is made between two kinds:
those in which there is no clear perception of the outside world (which, Vollmar explains, are similar to normal
nightly dreaming and can be compared
to a feverish dream), and those which
“are almost always related to a therapeutic process.” In this case, “the dream is
staged by an inner director, but not the
unconscious.” Its aim is to achieve a
measure of balance in this extreme existential situation and to release the flow
of energy once again. Just like many
nightly dreams, those experienced in an
oneiroid state also have a therapeutic
purpose, but one that is directed at the
physical rather than the spiritual level.
“Dreams of this kind often involve scenes
of pursuit in which patients try to escape.
In the case of physical suffering, there
is often a need to transcend the body.”
This explains why the experiences commonly reported by intensive care patients
include dreams of flying, of water, and
also of dying and release.
In each case, patients are processing a
combination of their experiences together with outside stimuli such as the noises made by people and equipment in the
room. Patients in an oneiroid state inhabit a kind of fictional reality and are never
in any doubt that their experiences might
not be real. This can be problematic if a
feeling of helplessness prompts a particularly violent reaction. One of the most
disturbing stories that director Tuğsal
01.09.11 14:02
D re a m rese a rch S leep
Moğul heard while researching for his
play concerned a man who was convinced
that people were trying to kill him. Using
his fingernails, he literally scratched the
word “MORD” (German for “murder”)
in the skin of his chest, so as to leave a
clue for the coroner.
Days in transit: For doctors and nurses, the capacity to empathize is limited when they are unable to perceive or picture the dreamlike states of intensive care patients.
PhOtOgraPhy: ralf emmerich
The mind knows many escapes
Dreams can produce monsters: patients in an oneiroid state may be transported to a different world that is entirely imaginary but appears utterly real.
“Dreams, whatever their type, always
focus on the problem at hand,” Vollmar
recapitulates. “How can we best understand the situation? What needs changing?” These are the questions that the
patient needs to address after reawakening and arriving back in the real world.
According to Vollmar, it is crucial to deal
with such issues. If this is not done, the
patients may always be haunted later
by the thought that they were comatose
while their body almost failed and their
mind went AWOL. “It’s a time for asking questions and for finding answers,”
asserts Vollmar. Otherwise, there is a
danger that the images the patient experienced while comatose could return. For
Angelika Däne, being involved in the production of Moğul’s play, for which she and
other patients played a consultative role,
was in itself a form of therapy. It was an
opportunity to take an in-depth look at the
play and her own experiences during her
“21 days in transit,” as she calls them.
“The psyche does things you can’t categorize,” she says. “I’ve often asked myself
just how a person, a body, can put up with
all it does.” The mind – the director in the
wings – knows many escape routes. Fortunately, however, it usually opts for the
front door.
Isabell Spilker
31
01.09.11 14:02
D-111132-2011
D-111131-2011
D-111130-2011
EN_32-35_RentalRobot.indd 32
Freedom of
choice: The
right device is
selected at
the touch screen,
and the corresponding door
of the blue steel
cabinet opens
automatically.
Ready for use:
Once taken out,
the equipment
can be used
immediately.
01.09.11 14:04
Re n ta l Ro bot Mo bile g a s d e t ec to r s
o
pen sesame
it’s secure, always available, and meets individual needs: a blue steel locker organizes the distribution
and return of gas detector devices and other equipMent for Maintenance and repair work at
Sabic Polyolefine gmbH.
S
afety doesn’t have off-hours or take
holidays. If urgent maintenance
and repair work is called for, the
necessary equipment has to be available
around the clock to protect workers. In
the petrochemical industry, such equipment includes mobile gas detectors ,
which are constantly needed for health
and safety purposes at the workplace.
Since the spring of 2011, the SABIC
Polyolefine GmbH site in Gelsenkirchen,
Germany, has been using a Dräger Rental
Robot to ensure that there are always
enough gas detectors available. “That
greatly increased the availability of the
devices,” sums up Rainer Knodel, Head
of Quality Assurance (QA) at the SABIC
site. At the Gelsenkirchen plant, polymerization systems are used to turn gaseous
ethylene and propylene into complex plastics that are optimized for specific applications with additives. The products of
SABIC include polyethylene and polypropylene, which are supplied to secondary industries as granulates. In total, the
plant manufactures about one million
tons of granulates per year.
ex-ox distribution station
The polymerization systems tower into
the sky, the dominant landmarks of the
plant grounds. A comparatively inconspicuous side passage leads to a plain,
white-painted room where the Rental
Robot is located. A sign that reads “ExOx Distribution Station” points the way
to the robot.
And the pragmatic name is really
very appropriate. From the outside, after all, the system bears no resemblance
DRägeR Review 103 | octobeR 2011
to the androids of science-fiction movies
or the robots currently used in automotive production.
Instead, the Rental Robot looks like a
large blue steel locker with a large number of doors. Glass panels reveal the contents of each compartment. At SABIC in
Gelsenkirchen, there are 78 of them of different sizes. “This locker system, with its
massive look and feel, actually contains
an elaborate system we developed in recent years and first tested a year and a half
ago at a large oil company,” says Christian
Cox, Portfolio Manager for Shutdown and
Rental Management at Dräger.
But all this sophistication is mostly
invisible to the users. That’s because, in
everyday working conditions, equipment
can be obtained from the system very
quickly. The process is demonstrated by
Ulrich Koch, a chemical laboratory tech-
nician at SABIC and one of the system
administrators of the Rental Robot. He
holds his ID against the reader, uses the
touch screen of the terminal to select a
Dräger X-am 5000, and instantly a door
opens with a soft click. The gas detector is standing by in its charging station
in the compartment. “The Rental Robot quickly proved its worth in everyday
use,” says Cox. “At the beginning, we visited the plant once a week, but now it’s
less and less often because of the high
reliability of the system.”
In the future, the DrägerService
technicians will ideally go to SABIC
only once every three months and replace the rental equipment with a set
of newly calibrated gas detectors. The
full package that the customer ordered
from Dräger also includes a rapid response service in the event of tech- >
shutdown: downtime for safety
germany requires refineries and similar installations to pass a technical inspection
every five years. the key requirements are specified in the Pressure equipment
Directive (14th equipment and Product Safety act), the Federal imission Protection
law (act on the Prevention of Harmful effects on the environment caused by air
Pollution, noise, vibration, and Similar Phenomena), and the Major accidents ordinance
(12th Federal imission Protection ordinance). these inspections and acceptance
tests are carried out during planned downtimes, also known as “shutdowns” or “turnarounds.” During this period, production comes to a halt. without such breaks, production runs continuously 365 days per year in many petrochemical facilities. During
these shutdowns, workers perform cleaning, maintenance, repair, and remodeling
or reconstruction. as a result of all this, the number of workers in the plant increases
sharply, mainly due to an influx of external workers. Supplying them with equipment
is the job of Dräger Shutdown and Rental Management (SRM).
33
01.09.11 14:04
D-111135-2011
D-111134-2011
D-111133-2011
Scanning and inspecting: Devices are checked into the system when they are returned and (in the example shown above) a
bar code is read by the scanner. In the future, RFID chips will perform this function. Before use, the devices are tested. To this
end, SABIC keeps on hand a supply of canisters with the necessary gas mixture.
> nical problems. If a device malfunctions, there is a pool of replacements
kept in reserve in the Rental Robot to
prevent work interruptions. In the
future, Dräger will be able to learn
about any malfunctions by constantly
exchanging data with the Rental Robot in Gelsenkirchen. That means service technicians will always be able to
act in time to ensure that enough
detection devices are on hand in the
rental station.
Rental: Only after identification
It took only a few seconds for Koch to
rent an X-am 5000, but a complex routine played out in the background while
he did so. First, the computer registers
the identity of the SABIC employee,
which is read from the employee ID
card via RFID technology (radio frequency identification). SABIC attaches
great importance to this process of using passive RFID chips in employee IDs,
because unlike bar codes, the RFID
components still operate effectively
when they get dirty. In the future, therefore, all rental equipment will also be
equipped with an RFID chip, replacing
the bar codes currently used.
Next, the software checks whether
the employee is authorized to rent out
the equipment. If the answer is positive,
the system selects a fully charged device
from its stock and opens the corresponding door. After a performance test, which
is carried out by the employee in the
room where the Rental Robot has been
set up, the measuring instrument can be
used right away.
34
“Only those who’ve had proper environmental, health, and safety instruction
can take equipment from the Rental Robot,” says Heiner Eikler, Laboratory Director in the Quality Assurance department at SABIC. “The training course
includes instruction in operating the
Rental Robot itself as well as teaching
users how to test the gas detectors at the
permanent testing stations in the Rental
Robot room.” The gases used for the tests
are piped to the station from large steel
canisters outside.
In the first six weeks after the
Rental Robot was put into service, approximately 300 SABIC employees were
trained in small groups. The workers
who are supplied on a temporary basis by partner companies are also regularly trained to use the system. Eikler designed the course with assistance from
the technical departments and created
the training documents. The instruction program, which was developed ac-
“Only those who
have received
specific training
can remove
equipment from
the Rental Robot.”
cording to environmental, health, and
safety guidelines, also includes some
historical background information.
For example, employees learn that in
the early days of gas detection, canaries were used to warn of dangerous substances and low levels of oxygen.
Not only does the software check
whether a person has had the latest
appropriate training, the system also
knows which devices in the Rental Robot can be accessed by an internal or external worker. In addition to gas detectors (a few dozen Dräger X-am 5000s and
7000s are currently used), the equipment also includes electronic measurement and control devices. “Any particular type of device can only be taken out if
the worker has the right authorization,”
sums up Rainer Knodel.
The transition phase meant a
good deal of effort for all those involved, says Quality Assurance Director
Knodel – both for his department and
the employees who had to pass their
training. But after only a few weeks, he
says, it was apparent that workers were
responding well to the Rental Robot.
One contributing factor was the central location of the rental room in the
production area. In contrast to the procedure in place before, which required
employees to visit the Quality Assurance
lab for equipment, the use of the Rental
Robot now means less walking.
Payment per use
Even after the Rental Robot was put into
service, the lab still retained responsibility for the gas detection equipment. The
01.09.11 14:04
D-111135-2011
Re n ta l Ro bot Mo bile g a s d e t ec to r s
DRägeR Review 103 | octobeR 2011
The gas detector is returned to the
system after the task for which it was
needed has been completed. At the
Gelsenkirchen SABIC plant, the equipment is used in a variety of situations:
protecting workers when the machines
in use aren’t explosion-proof, performing jobs in close quarters (confined-
space entry, or CSE), and work in shafts.
Once the device is back in its compartment, the Rental Robot charges it up
again and keeps it ready for the next job.
The states of the individual devices are
indicated by LED lamps in the compartments, which either flash red or are continually illuminated.
Peter thomas
PHotogRaPHy: Sabic Polyolefine gmbH
system itself operates autonomously, and
the four administrators are responsible
for managing the rental permissions
and giving instruction to employees.
That includes the annual environmental, health and safety instruction, and
the printing of smart cards that provide
access to the Rental Robot. In May 2011,
the average number of rentals per day
was about 20, and the trend is upward.
“We’ve broken new ground with the
Rental Robot,” says lab director Eikler,
and that spirit is reflected in the vigorous planning phase at SABIC, which
lasted roughly a year. Dräger supplied
the Rental Robot as a turnkey technical
component after a lead time of slightly
less than two months.
The customer is billed for the operation of the system based on the number of rentals. This business model, in
which Dräger supplies both the rental
station and the gas detectors, is called
“pay per use.” It represents “a complete
package of services for the customer,”
says business consultant Cox. He sees
great potential for the Rental Robot, especially in long-term projects like the
one in Gelsenkirchen. When there is a
planned shutdown, however, and several hundred external workers are suddenly deployed at a company’s worksite, the focus will continue to be on the
classic Dräger Rental Shop for distributing work-safety equipment. But when
a shutdown of this sort takes place, a
Rental Robot can still play an important role in keeping the workers supplied during the evening hours or on
the weekend, Cox says.
Plastic granulates are produced here for further processing: a view of the production facilities of sabic Polyolefine gmbH.
sabic Polyolefine gmbH
Sabic Polyolefine gmbH is a subsidiary of Saudi basic industries corporation, a
large international producer of chemicals, plastics, metals, and fertilizers. the company
was founded in 1976 and its headquarters are located in Riyadh, Saudi arabia. Sabic
Polyolefine currently supplies more than 300 plastics-processing companies in germanspeaking countries with a large variety of plastic granulates. the latter are used to
create products such as films, containers, and pipes, as well as components for the automotive industry.
35
01.09.11 14:04
Fir e Fig h t in g N e w Z e al aN d
D
anger on the Stove
Fires have many causes – in new ZealanD too. The country’s national fire department is called out to
battle blazes around 70,000 times each year. dramatic Fire Service campaigns repeatedly warn the public
of the dangers that lurk on the stove – but the threat of fire exists in other places as well.
I
t’s nighttime at Lake Tekapo when
the loud and ear-piercing sound of an
old-style siren suddenly fills the darkness. A vacationer sits up in his bed at an
isolated cabin on the lake. Is the world
coming to an end? (probably not, because there would also be trumpets!) Is
the dam overflowing? (the water didn’t
look too high last night…) A nuclear
catastrophe? (highly unlikely: New Zealand has no nuclear power plants or
nuclear weapons.) There’s no outbreak
of panic, which means local residents
aren’t overly alarmed. The vacationer
lays down and goes back to sleep. He
will find out the next morning what happened... Although the members of the
local volunteer fire departments have
radio receivers, they’re still summoned
by sirens in emergencies. As it turns out,
a serious accident was the cause of the
noise the night before. Firefighters rush
to their trucks around 70,000 times each
year in New Zealand – and not just to battle blazes. A total of 18,000 fires triggered
alarms in 2009; 20,000 incidents alone
were classified as “diverse,” which can
mean anything from helping a woman in
labor, getting a cat down from a tree, or
rescuing people and animals in floods.
The New Zealand Fire Service also went
into action to attend to 4,000 car accidents in 2009 and provided medical
assistance in 5,000 cases. Last but not
least, the red fire trucks had to deal with
22,000 false alarms.
It takes only a few minutes for the
firefighters to leave the station after an
alarm is sounded. They race to their
trucks, quickly put on their heavy jackets, boots, and gloves, and climb aboard.
green island: with 15,000 kilometers of coastline, new Zealand is never far from the sea.
EN_36-41_NeuseelandFeuerwehr.indd 36
01.09.11 14:05
R ep o R t
PhotograPhy: Mara SoMMer
F i reF i g h t i n g i n ne w Z e a l a n d
Always ready
for action:
the New
Zealand Fire
Service.
Their breathing apparatus, placed in
each seat, awaits them there. Much of the
equipment in the trucks bears the Dräger
logo – things like protection suits, thermal
imaging cameras, and, above all, breathing apparatus.
When they race out of the station, they
might also pass an alarming billboard that
says: “Don’t Let the Neighbors Kill Your
Kids.” The billboard series is one of several dramatic Fire Service campaigns that
aims to make people more aware of the
dangers posed by the kitchen stove. The
billboard shows a pleasant looking married couple who have evidently been working in their garden and are now ringing
a neighbor’s doorbell. Underneath is the
phrase: “Don’t Let the Neighbors Kill Your
Kids.” The message is that unattended
stoves is the number one cause of home
fires in New Zealand. “Please Don’t Forget to Turn Your Stove off Before You Go to
the Door,” is another phrase that’s used.
People remember messages like that.
“The ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ campaign
has gotten into everyone’s head,” says
Rob McMahon, National Plant and Equipment Manager for the New Zealand Fire
Service. But the “Don’t Drink and Fry”
campaign will sensitize the “Kiwis,” as
New Zealanders refer to themselves, to
something new. The fact is that “drinking
and frying” often causes terrible blazes:
People come home from a pub hungry,
for example, and put something on the
stove – but then fall asleep. If they’re lucky,
they’ve responded to one of the postcards
the fire department dropped into their
letter box a few months earlier. These postcards advertise the fact that the agency
is willing to run a fire safety check of
each house free of charge. If the resident
accepted this offer, a firefighter would
have paid him or her a visit, checked the
emergency exits, quickly drawn up an
evacuation plan, and installed a smoke
detector on the ceiling. The New Zealand
Fire Service has succeeded in reducing
the number of fatalities in home fires by
50 percent over the last few years.
prefabricated buildings: the risk
of an earthquake in Wellington
Preventive work is becoming more and
more important for the fire department,
according to McMahon, who has an office in a glass skyscraper in Wellington.
McMahon has never himself worked as a
fireman. “I’m not a firefighter,” he says.
“I run outside when something’s burning; they run inside.” McMahon, an athletic type from the UK, leans back and >
37
01.09.11 14:05
After an earthquake: “Once things
move into cleanup phase, we’re no
longer responsible.”
> relaxes in his chair. His office in the Fire
Service’s headquarters has a view of the
New Zealand capital, its extensive bay, and
the hills that surround it, which the city is
slowly encroaching upon. “The Terrace”
is the office’s address – and the street is
in fact a kind of terrace created by earthquakes. The Pacific Plate pushes under
the Australian Plate in the region around
the capital, which puts Wellington at a
high risk for quakes. “There’s an active
fault line right down here,” says McMahon as he points out the window.
Christchurch, on the other hand,
used to be considered relatively safe – until February 22, 2011, when a severe quake
rocked the city on New Zealand’s southern
island. Many historical downtown buildings collapsed and 172 people died. Rescue teams were flown in to Christchurch
from all over the country, but they never
stayed longer than three days. “When
things move into the cleanup phase, we’re
no longer responsible,” says McMahon.
The main job for the Urban Search and
Rescue Teams (USAR) is to bring in dogs
and thermal cameras to search for survivors, cutting tools for rescues, and materials for stabilizing buildings.
McMahon is from England, where
“nothing shakes.” That’s why he was
“completely shocked” when he experienced his first quake in New Zealand.
“But as bizarre as it sounds, you get used
to them – or at least the minor ones,” he
says. Still, the 6.3 earthquake that hit
Christchurch unnerved many. Up until that one, New Zealanders had taken
the shaking in stride, McMahon reports:
“When something rumbled, people would
38
say: ‘oops, that was a good one.’“ McMahon’s New Zealander wife believes the
“little quakes relieve the tension in the
Earth’s crust.” This may not be scientifically proven, but people here have their
own ideas, and that’s how they live with
the quakes. McMahon used to work as a
manager for the London underground
and at Heathrow airport. Now he’s responsible for equipment at the New Zealand Fire Service. Many Dräger products – like thermal cameras, gas-proof
protection suits, and splash-protective
overalls – were already in use before the
largest order ever placed with Dräger was
recently completed. This involved the procurement of breathing apparatus units,
which used to be obtained from several
different manufacturers. Seven manufacturers submitted tenders after the Fire
Service decided to completely replace its
equipment – but Dräger landed the order.
The firefighters were very happy about
that, according to McMahon: “They simply love the new stuff because they know
it really helps protect them.” It was a
major order: “We’re a small country,” says
McMahon, but adds that New Zealand is
also one of the few nations with a national
fire department. That’s not the case in
Germany, the United States, or any other
Western country. “That means when we
buy something, we generally buy large
quantities,” he explains.
An advantage of the new breathing apparatus, according to one fireman from
Wellington, is that it collects all key data
and sends it to the operations unit, which
therefore gets a better overview of the situation. The apparatus is also equipped with
the Bodyguard 1000 “motionlessness alert
system” that sounds an alarm when the
person wearing it is in danger. The masks
fit much better as well: “They’re more ergonomic, comfortable, and lighter due
to the lower weight of the carbon compressed air tank.” Participants in the Sky
Tower Challenge also like that attribute.
The Challenge is a competition in which
firefighters run up the 51 floors of the
Sky Tower in Auckland. They do this in
their full firefighting dress, carrying 25
kilograms of additional equipment and
wearing their breathing apparatus with
its compressed air tank. Last year’s winner, Erin Gray from the voluntary fire brigade in Queentown, said she had to walk
rapidly up the stairs, rather than running:
“I weigh only around twice as much as
the equipment.” Gray nonetheless made
it up the 1,103 stairs in only 13 minutes
and 28 seconds.
Voluntary and full-time
firefighters
New Zealand has around 1,800 professional firefighters and approximately
7,500 volunteers. Still, fewer and fewer
people are volunteering for the demanding job. Auckland used to be surrounded
by independent villages that were home to
farmers, electricians, bakers etc., and almost all of them were also volunteer firefighters. As the years went by, the villages
turned into suburbs. The people worked
in the city, so there was practically no
one to man the fire stations during the
day. “In the old days, a son would join the
same department his father had served
in before him,” says McMahon. “These >
01.09.11 14:05
N e w Z e a l a Nd F ir e Fig h t in g
Signs inform motorists of the risk of bush fires on a daily basis.
PhOtOgraPhy: Mara SOMMer
Wellington: the new Zealand Fire Service is r un from a skyscraper, similar to this one.
rob McMahon, national Plant and equipment Manager for the new Zealand Fire Service.
dräger review 103 | OctOber 2011
e
verything in its place: rob McMahon (left) and fireman ian Allen check the equipment together. Better safe than sorry.
39
01.09.11 14:05
New Zealand’s sensitive
animal kingdom requires
special protection
Ready for the next assignment: New Zealand Fire Service
firefighter Ian Allen in full kit.
PhOtOgraPhy: Mara SOMMer
The worst situations are those that involve children,
according to John Arthur from Paraparaumu.
Enough air left? John Arthur checks his compressed air
apparatus, which always has to be completely reliable.
40
Arriving safely: The breathing apparatus in the fire engine is
ready placed in the seat.
01.09.11 14:06
N e w Z e a l a Nd F ir e Fig h t in g
> days, someone will work for a company for
two years and then move away for another
job. In short, the members of this mobile
generation are not really that likely to
volunteer for a long-term stint with the
fire department.” Today’s jobs are also
more demanding. “No boss is going to
like it if a person just ups and leaves the
office or factory to rush to something
that might turn out to be a false alarm,”
McMahon explains.
Fragile old buildings
John Arthur, Station Officer, supports the
volunteer fire brigade in Paraparaumu
with his team. He recalls an assignment
he once had in nearby Wellington. The
old 4 and 5 story brick commercial buildings in the centre of Wellington back in
the 1980’s were not earthquake resistant.
That’s why entire rows of buildings had
to be torn down. “There was a suspicion
that sometimes the demolition contractors set fire to the buildings as a quick
way of getting rid of the buildings,” he
adds. On one occasion, someone reported
smelling smoke: “The biggest truck was
already on its way to another place, so
there were only three of us left. When we
got out, I turned around and suddenly saw
a five-story brick commercial building in
flames.” Sometimes the only thing to do
is limit the damage. “We try to at least
save neighboring buildings.” The worst
situations, says Arthur, are those that
involve children. “Recently we had an
alarm because a three-year-old girl was
choking on a piece of toast,” the fireman
recalls. “It’s a horrible thing to see a
child suffering and struggling for breath.”
dräger review 103 | OctOber 2011
Arthur was able to quickly save her,
though: “That’s what we’re trained to do.”
Sophisticated training and better
equipment have made firefighting less
dangerous than it used to be, says Arthur,
who’s been a fireman for nearly 40 years.
On the other hand, the job now harbors
dangers where one would least expect it.
For example, even the smallest shed can
contain chemicals. The lovely wine region
north of Auckland isn’t completely free of
threats either: There’s herbicide spray in
storehouses, ammunition, and gasoline
for tractors. “When I go into a house or
a hotel several stories high, I always take
a look at the evacuation plan and emergency exits,” Arthur says. It’s in his blood
after so many years as a fireman. Arthur
recently visited the brand-new shopping
mall in Paraparaumu – but he wasn’t
there to buy anything. Instead, he went
to the facility to make sure the emergency
exists were clearly marked.
Possum-free zone
New Zealand’s sensitive animal kingdom
requires special protection. There were
no mammals in the country before humans brought in rats and possums. Birds
like the kiwi and kakapo had no natural
predators, which is why many species of
birds have become extinct in New Zealand. To protect endangered bird species, several kokako, hihi, and other birds
were flown to a small island that had been
cleared of rodents beforehand. So, if a
fire were to break out on Kapiti Island,
it wouldn’t be enough to simply put out
the blaze; firefighters would also have to
make sure they didn’t bring any stowaway
animals with them, otherwise all the efforts to preserve endangered bird species
would have been in vain. That’s why all
fire department equipment is stored in a
way that keeps rats out. Protection suits
hang on hooks and all materials are kept
high up and inaccessible in rooms that
also contain rat traps.
Follow the Kiwis!
So does McMahon sometimes get a little
queasy when he looks out of his office
and sees a landscape that’s been visibly
impacted by earthquakes? He relates how
New Zealand firefighters also helped out
in Fukushima, Japan, after the earthquake there. “At least we don’t have any
nuclear power plants here,” he points out.
New Zealanders live under a volcano – or
on an active geological fault line, which
is why the country completely rejects nuclear power. The government doesn’t even
allow nuclear powered ships to enter its
harbors – and certainly not any ship carrying nuclear weapons. New Zealand’s
building codes are considered the most
stringent in the world, and the country’s
new buildings are much safer than the
historic ones that collapsed in Christchurch. A severe quake in Wellington
would undoubtedly once again bring out
the fire brigades, with their pagers and
sirens, from all over the country. New
Zealanders learn in school exactly what
they need to do in the event of an earthquake – but the many tourists who visit
the country would be less prepared. McMahon therefore has a piece of advice for
them: “Follow the Kiwis; they know what
they’re doing.”
Barbara Schaefer
41
01.09.11 14:06
In sIg h t Prod u c t Ion
s
afety under the hood
Death by fire? that’s often what the headlines imply, but the reality is much more sobering. More people
die from smoke and fumes than from the fire itself. For 30 years, the Parat c fire escape hood
has been providing protection against these toxic gases and the danger they pose to life and limb.
tailor-made: the visor is sewn into the fire escape hood.
42
EN_42-45_Schulterblick_ParatC.indd 42
01.09.11 14:09
S
D-111122-2011
Protection against toxic gases…
Some of Figur’s co-workers still clearly remember the development of this
escape hood, including production engineer Willi Meß. “In the late 1970s there
was a series of hotel fires in the state
of Schleswig-Holstein,” Meß recalls.
“Many people died; they suffocated in
the smoke.” Of course, hotel fires aren’t
just a German phenomenon. They can
happen anywhere. On June 23, 2000, a
fire in Australia killed 18 young backpackers. And contrary to what people
sometimes suggest, the biggest danger in these situations isn’t the actual flames. Approximately 85 percent of
the victims lose consciousness in smokefilled stairwells, suffer the after-effects
of smoke fumes, or die from insidious
combustion gases like carbon monoxide. The fire escape hood provides
protection against these gases, smoke
fumes, and particulates for at least 15
minutes, which is almost always enough
children and adults. At the same time,
the inner mask and neck collar have to
form a seal – whether the hood is worn
by a fashion model or a sumo wrestler.
Keeping the promise that “one size fits
all” requires carefully considered design
and well-chosen materials.
D-111123-2011
he looks up suddenly from her
industrial sewing machine, taken a little by surprise. “How long
does a needle like this last? A few weeks
for sure!” answers Regina Rexin before
turning back to the task of sewing a large
plastic visor into a signal-red material, using high-strength aramid thread.
“That’s just one of many steps that go
into making our fire escape hood,” says
team leader Christoph Figur. In the
course of a year he is responsible for the
production over 100,000 of these hoods,
which offer efficient protection against
fire and smoke fumes.
D-111124-2011
Head of
the hoods:
Christoph
Figur manages
production.
The Parat C: This hood protects against
toxic fire-related gases for 15 minutes.
time to reach safety via emergency exits
and escape routes.
It was the hotel fires, which happened
right in Dräger’s backyard, so to speak,
that lent the initial momentum for the
development of the Parat C. But today the
customers are mainly from industry, especially the (petro-) chemical, oil, and gas
sectors, and the hood also provides added
safety to fire departments, hospitals, and
nursing homes.
For a piece of life-saving equipment,
a Parat C that is finished and ready for
delivery looks surprisingly simple. But
like any product that seems simple, the
hood incorporates many ideas, technological developments, and manufacturing tricks. Willi Meß explains the
continuous work on the fire escape
hood by pointing out that “in a fire,
people are naturally very nervous. So
a hood they can easily put on gives the
best chance of protection.” The requirements are many and diverse. The hood
has to fit people who wear glasses,
for example, and it must fit securely on
…and even against jets of flame
The best way to appreciate these two
aspects is to trace the production of a
hood: from the point at which the strips
of synthetic material are cut to consignment of the finished product. The hood
itself consists of a polysulfone (PES) fabric. This high-strength, chemical-resistant plastic is used in applications involving high mechanical and thermal stress,
including aircraft production. PES also
has good flame resistance and high melt
viscosity, so it not only protects against
flying sparks, but can also withstand
an 850 °C jet of flame for several seconds. On the mask’s exterior the fabric is
coated with bright orange PVC, which is
highly visible even in smoky conditions.
The visor consists of cellulose propionate – a crystal-clear, sturdy plastic that
is used in high-temperature applications
and can also absorb a certain amount of
water. An anti-fogging agent is applied to
both sides to prevent visibility problems
resulting from condensing perspiration
on the interior.
The whole production department
is staffed almost exclusively by women.
“Manual labor accounts for a very big
share of the work involved in making the
hoods,” says Figur. The process of sewing in the visor can’t be reliably automat- >
43
01.09.11 14:09
In sIg h t Prod u c t Ion
It’s important for the hood to also form a seal at the neck – on everyone, from collar size 37 to 50
> ed, not to mention the stitching together of the two sections of the hood into a
three-dimensional shape. “That takes
skillful craftsmanship!” Figur says. And
the same applies to sewing in the neck
collar, which consists of a wide strip of
cotton fabric that is easy on the skin and
absorbs perspiration. The collar fabric also includes elastomer threads, to
ensure it stretches easily and provides
a good fit for a very wide range of sizes.
The 370-millimeter-long collar can be
stretched to up to 980 millimeters. For
the sake of comparison, 370 millimeters
corresponds to a collar size of 37, and
typical clothing sizes go up to collar size
50 (a neck circumference of 500 millimeters). “But the whole head also has
to pass through it when the hood is put
on, starting at the chin,” says Christoph
Figur. “And then it has to form a good
seal at the neck, for everyone.”
The production itself is based on
the principle of division of labor. Some
of the work steps are highly specialized and require a relatively long training period. For time-consuming steps
in the process, the individual workstations are duplicated to ensure a constant, demand-based flow of material
according to an order point inventory system. The final steps are especially complex. First, the rubber sleeve is
inserted. This acts as a half mask inside
the hood and forms a seal around the
mouth and nose – again for all users.
This half mask, which automatically slides into the right position when
the user pulls the hood on, holds the
high-performance respiratory filter on
44
the hood’s exterior. “This is our combination CO-P2 filter for fire and smoke
related gases,” explains Figur, referring
to a protective filter against substances
including carbon monoxide and particulate matter. The filter, which also protects against hydrogen sulfide, is fitted
into the sleeve to form an airtight seal
and secured to the mask with a metal
clamp. “The clamp ensures a sealing
surface of 360 degrees, and it’s attached
with a pneumatic collet that applies a
precisely measured force of 2,400 newtons,” says Figur. Clips sewn onto the
hood are fastened to the two ends of the
headband, which ensures a secure-fitting hood for all head sizes.
hoods were once dried on clothes lines
When the hood is stored, the filter is
sealed tight against water vapor by
means of plugs at the front and rear. The
hood has a total service life of 12 years.
The seal is attached in such a way that
makes it easy to check, and it practically tears off by itself when the mask is
unpacked. It’s no coincidence that this
design resembles the automatic rip-cord
used in parachuting, which also provides
safety for people in tense situations.
“In the past,” recalls Willi Meß, a
pioneer in the development of the fire
escape hood, “we dried the escape
hoods on clothes lines in ovens at 80
°C, and then we sealed them in vapor
barrier bags. But the current method with rubber sealing plugs extended the shelf life of a filter from three
to six years.” And the fact that the filter
can be pushed into the half mask like a
telescope, requiring less space in storage, is another detail that originated in
the early days of the Parat C. Finally, the
exhalation valve is fitted into the side
opening of the mask insert. This facilitates breathing and protects the filter
from moisture, which would otherwise
impair its effectiveness. “To insert the
valve, one auxiliary method we use is
to spread the opening across two mandrels. Because when you do that 500
times a day without tools, it takes a toll
on the muscles, tendons, and joints,”
explains Figur.
Now the fire escape hood is practically finished. But its packaging – which
differs according to its specific area of
application – is also part of the production process, because this is where the
“rip-cord” for breaking the filter seal is
attached. In mid-2011 the Parat C had its
30th birthday. About a million of these
hoods have been sold to date. On the outside the first models look almost identical to the contemporary versions, but
new materials have been steadily making them lighter and somewhat safer. The
production process has also been continuously improved, which helps to keep the
Parat C affordable. “With this continuous
product management,” says a confident
Christoph Figur, “the fire escape hood
will be helping to save lives and protect
people’s health in many situations for the
next 30 years to come.” nils schiffhauer
Further information online, including:
Product information
www.draeger.com/103/paratc
01.09.11 14:09
D-111125-2011
D-111127-2011
D-111126-2011
Almost like at a textile company: The pre-cut pieces of bright red material for fire escape hoods are stacked up at the right.
D-111129-2011
D-111128-2011
The filter, which represents the user’s link to the outside world, is carefully fitted and checked in these work steps.
It takes strength to attach the filter to the hood and create an airtight seal. Machines (right) help the workers.
45
06.09.11 11:35
Drug test
emerge n cy warD
PhOtOgraPhy: Patrick Ohligschläger
Left: the hospital
in Nordhausen
is a hub for patient
care in germany’s
Harz region.
right: the Dräger
Drugtest 5000 –
hygienic, unobtrusive,
and convenient.
46
EN_46-49_Notaufnahme.indd 46
the engineer in his element: rüdiger
steinbrück is responsible for the medical
devices at südharz Hospital. Dräger review 103 | OctOber 2011
01.09.11 14:10
HOSPi tA L Dr u g t e s t
Admission test in Nordhausen
in germany, Südharz Hospital Nordhausen serves as a medical care hub for people within a radius
of about 50 kilometers. For some time now, the hospital has been performing a Drug test to check
incoming patients who show any signs of substance abuse. this not only helps to minimize possible
side effects of medications, it also allows a differential diagnosis – indicating when slurred speech is
caused not by alcohol but by a neurological impairment, for instance.
R
üdiger Steinbrück oversees more
than 10,0000 appliances, devices, and machines. That’s what
is involved in being responsible for the
medical equipment of a modern, maximum-care hospital (800 beds) – the technologies range from the smallest infusion pump to full medical ventilation
systems to CT scanners. Steinbrück, a
trained engineer, knows them all. With
his six-member team, he keeps an eye on
the condition of these vital instruments,
all the time and always in situ. This is
one of the strengths that sometimes distinguishes Südharz Hospital in the town
of Nordhausen from other facilities of
its size: It hasn’t outsourced its medical
technicians.
under one roof
In Nordhausen, the skilled technical
staff has remained under its own roof,
as have the medical and nursing professionals. And their expertise is broad: If
there is a snag somewhere, specialists
are on the spot. They are very familiar
with not just their electronic and mechanical “patients,” but also the peo-
ple in the wards. And that’s one of the
best things that can happen in an innovative hospital. Without users who
adopt new technologies and turn them
into effective tools for themselves and
their patients, even the best ideas can
be problematic. The presence of on-site
specialists also makes it easier for medical technology to find its place and become accepted in the wards.
Südharz Hospital employs more than
1,800 men and women, which makes
it the largest hospital in the northern
part of the German state of Thuringia;
over 26,000 inpatients are treated here
every year. And Rüdiger Steinbrück has
followed the entire development of the
hospital into an ultra-modern, maximum-care facility. “I started out as a
young engineer on January 15, 1980,” recalls Steinbrück. “At that time, the hospital was still just a shell. There were
walls in place but nothing else. So right
from the start I was smack in the middle
of planning, construction supervision,
and the development of the building, together with the architects and special
planners.”
The work progressed and several years
later the former East Germany, the client
for whom the hospital was being built,
ceased to exist. It was one of the most dynamic periods in the history of the German healthcare system. But there was
still time to integrate the technical standards of the reunified country into the
planning – giving the hospital an edge in
terms of modernity, because it was compatible with the new standards from the
very beginning. This becomes clear to visitors when they see the modern emergency ward and the helicopter landing
pad in front of the hospital.
Südharz Hospital is an important
healthcare hub for the former East
German states. That’s partly due to geography, too. There are bigger medical centers in all four cardinal directions – Göttingen, Erfurt, Halle, and
Magdeburg – but all of them are between
80 and over 100 kilometers away. So the
staff in Nordhausen must be able to handle any medical needs within a radius
of about 50 kilometers. That calls for a
high level of performance on the part of
the staff and the medical devices used. >
47
01.09.11 14:10
Less lab work, faster results,
improved safety
> One recent addition to the suite of medical equipment was the Dräger DrugTest 5000* – a compact, fully automated,
miniature laboratory that is easy to use
and can identify illegal drugs in minutes
(see also: Dräger Review 102, pp. 32 ff.).
This is exceedingly important, especially
in the case of an emergency. In day-today police work, the technology has already proven its value. For some time
now, DrugTest devices have been used
on patrols along with the fast and lightweight Dräger AlcoTest breathalyzers
used to identify drunk drivers. Thanks to
these instruments, officers can immediately determine whether or not a driver
is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The devices also reduce the costs of
laboratory work.
An individually packaged sample collector is ready for every patient.
Warning against side effects
48
Quick drug test: Only 0.28 milliliter of saliva is needed for the analysis.
P
hotograPhy: Patrick ohligSchläger
Not only do these instruments sharpen
the eyes of the law, they also provide
deeper insights to healthcare professionals. And at Südharz Hospital, they
help to improve patient safety. Rüdiger
Steinbrück pushed for early adoption of
the technology and introduced his colleagues to it. The DrugTest 5000 is officially approved for use in the healthcare
sector in Europe. Unlike its purpose in
law enforcement, the aim of drug testing in a hospital isn’t to check whether
people who have suffered accidents or
illness have broken the law. Instead, the
doctor treating the patient must know
immediately whether or not there may
be side effects or interactions because
of the presence of prohibited substances
or controlled pharmaceutical products.
Insert the sample, and in no time the printer documents the results.
* For law enforcement purposes only in the U.S.
06.09.11 11:49
HOSPi tA L Dr u g t e s t
Many medicines don’t have the effect expected of them if other drugs are present. The same is true for interactions between medicines and alcohol. In these
cases, the strategy for emergency care often needs to be completely different. The
physician also must act to provide emergency care in the event of a dangerous
overdose of the drugs in question – and
know what he or she is facing. Antitoxins are available even in the case of poisoning with the strongest opiates, such
as heroin. And sometimes the patients
themselves think someone may have
slipped them a drug. Help can be provided in these cases, too.
samples via pneumatic tube
Angela Hoffmann, the head nurse in the
emergency ward, uses the DrugTest regularly. She appreciates how it simplifies
things and saves time. The traditional
method of detecting illegal substances
in the body of a patient is based first on a
brief visual appraisal by an experienced
diagnostician, and then on lab analyses of
urine samples. “We are connected to the
lab by means of a pneumatic tube system,
so the samples get there quickly,” says
Steinbrück. “But we expect to wait about
half an hour before we get the results. And
the fact that a lab test is relatively expensive is also an important consideration.”
But the medical staff found one argument more convincing than perhaps all
the others, says Nurse Hoffmann: “The
problem with the laboratory test is getting the urine sample to begin with.”
Many intoxicated patients have very little inclination to give the sample volun-
tarily – if they are responsive at all. In
the past, the medical necessity of getting one anyway has routinely guaranteed very unpleasant incidents for the
whole emergency team.
Things are different with the automated DrugTest 5000. The process is
hygienic, unobtrusive, and causes no
embarrassment. The system detects
drugs through saliva. A sample collector is used to gather it from the mucous
membranes of the mouth in just minutes, and a color indicator shows when
enough has been collected (0.28 milliliter). The test cassette, saliva sample, and
cartridge are inserted into the analysis
chamber of the instrument. And then
the device demonstrates its high level
of autonomy. There is nothing more
to do, while internally the instrument
searches for amphetamines, methamphetamine, opiates, cocaine, methadone, sedatives, and THC, the main
active ingredient of hashish and marijuana. “Now,” says Nurse Hoffmann,
“we’re ready to see where things stand
with you.” The wireless mobile printer
hums quietly and produces a results
report: “COC – Negative. OPI – Negative. BENZO – Negative. THC – Negative.
AMP – Negative. MAMP – Negative.”
That signifies a full acquittal; no
drugs at all were detected this morning. The ensuing sigh of relief is now
exhaled right into the AlcoTest 6510
breathalyzer. It’s small and light, and it
operates according to the classic “blowinto-this-please” principle. The AlcoTest
6510 also provides printed results, succinctly and accurately, in a form com-
patible with medical records: “Zero
percent blood alcohol.” In an actual
emergency, the physician would now
have fewer things to worry about.
In the case of distinctive neurological symptoms, for example, the doctor now knows that he or he has to look
for a disorder that isn’t being caused by
drugs. This distinction is extremely important. Many impaired functions can
be caused by poisoning or may indicate
damage to the brain that must be investigated immediately with imaging
procedures. The same is true for sudden dizziness and movement disorders,
unusually slow or slurred speech, and
many other conspicuous symptoms that
could at first glance be attributed to alcohol or drug abuse.
Verification is better
The new technology for drug detection
is not only practical; it makes a great
deal of sense too, according to Nurse
Hoffmann. And not just at Südharz Hospital, but also outside on the roads of the
state of Thuringia, because those roads
all too often lead unexpectedly into the
emergency ward in Nordhausen. “It’s
good that police are also checking drivers this way. We treat a lot of victims of
traffic accidents, often for weeks at a
time, many of them in intensive care,”
says the head nurse. “And then we learn
that the person who caused the accident was on drugs. Everyone should be
aware: They can be checked for drug
and alcohol use, and the notion that
you won’t get caught just isn’t true anymore.”
silke umbach
49
01.09.11 14:11
O u T LO Ok
biO nic s
Always a
T
he only thing that’s really big about
Salvinia molesta – or “giant salvinia” as it’s known in English – is its
harmful environmental impact. From
its original habitat in the rain forests
of South America, the aquatic fern was
brought to Sri Lanka in the middle of the
20th century, where it reproduced explosively in the rice fields and ruined farmers’ harvests. The problem persisted until
the 1980s, when the farmers released a
species of weevil – Cyrtobagus salviniae – into the fields. The weevil ate the
ferns – and the nightmare came to an end.
But today, 30 years later, the plant is
suddenly making itself useful. And scientists are even predicting it has a bright
50
EN_50-53_AusblickBionik.indd 50
future in climate protection. That’s
because the fern can serve as a model for
reducing the fuel consumption of ships
worldwide by ten percent. That amounts
to about 20 billion liters a year, or around
one third of the amount of fuel burned by
all the automobiles in Germany in a oneyear period.
A fern that makes ships faster?
The plant is taking on a new role thanks
to its structure. The leaves of S. molesta range from round to oval in shape
and usually have a fold along the central
rib. On the upper surface of their floating leaves are papillae with four hairlike branches that stand erect to form
an egg-shaped “cage.” These formations
measure about one millimeter and look
like an egg beater.
The plants have remarkable characteristics: The stems are hydrophobic,
but the cage-like structures are hydrophilic. While the stems keep the water
below at a distance, the cages above
encapsulate water. In this way they form
a waterproof “roof” that prevents even
the tiniest drops from seeping through.
As a result, under water the fern encloses itself in a paper-thin but very strong
“garment” of air, which remains intact
even for months at a time.
For shipbuilders, the “egg beaters”
are opening up entirely new possibilities.
01.09.11 14:12
T
Trunk Length Ahead
what do elephants and aquatic ferns have in common? both offer best-practice
solutions for technical challenges, making them the stars of today’s bionics reseArch,
which recently was recognized for its bright future with a prestigious prize.
The original (at left) and
the copy: The artificial
elephant trunk has such
a light touch that it
can even grasp raw eggs.
It is hoped that the principle by which
they function can be used in the development of ship hulls that will glide through
the water enclosed in an envelope of air,
thus greatly reducing friction and fuel
consumption. “After scientists gained an
understanding of the self-cleaning ability of a lotus leaf 20 years ago, the discovery of the Salvinia effect is one of the
most important new findings in bionics,”
reports Prof. Thomas Schimmel of the
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Whether this aquatic fern will eventually become as important as the lotus
remains to be seen. The lotus effect put
bionics in the spotlight, and it has become
a kind of figurehead of the field. When it
PhOtOgraPhy: FestO (large image); Nick hObgOOD
a
Detail of a cidaridae sea urchin, which
uses its spines to wedge itself into reef
crevices and thus protect its underside.
was discovered, two factors simultaneously emerged in a stroke of good fortune: In
the 1990s bionics research was still in its
infancy, and it became possible to transfer the self-cleaning ability of nanostructured surfaces to many objects of everyday
use. Examples include roof tiles, coatings,
and paints for building facades – the water
beaded up on the modified surfaces, like
on the leaves of the lotus plant, and carried away all the dirt particles as it rolled
off. The surfaces were left clean; that
was clearly visible. There hasn’t been a
comparably sensational bionic innovation since then. “Bionics is continually
providing entirely new approaches and
making very big contributions to sustain- >
51
01.09.11 14:12
O u t lOOk biO nic s
A sea urchin as a model for lightweight, permeable, and strong safety helmets
PhOtOgraPhy: get t y images, PrOf. wilhelm barthlOt t/Universität bOnn
> ability – unlike with the lotus effect, however, that fact often isn’t readily apparent in the products,” says Dr. Rainer Erb
in explaining the scant public awareness.
An inexhaustible pool of ideas
As Executive Director of the Bionics Competence Network (BIOKON), Erb is a key
figure in the bionics sector whose talents
include facilitation, communication, and
knowledge management. Since it was
founded in 2001, the non-profit association has served as a contact point for companies and organizations seeking suitable
partners for bionics research. One of its
main purposes is to bring together engineers and biologists. The S. molesta success story shows how important this can
be. For this effort, three German institutes from different fields are collaborating: the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Institute of Applied Physics, the
Department of Fluid Mechanics at the
University of Rostock, and the Nees-Institut für Biodiversität der Pflanzen (Nees
Institute for Plant Biodiversity) in Bonn
where the lotus effect was discovered. Scientists like Erb believe bionics has potential in several respects. First, nature’s
innovation pool is inexhaustible and tried
and tested beyond any doubt. There can’t
be any best-practice solutions superior
to those that have emerged as a result of
millions of years of natural selection and
mutation. Secondly, “Bionics make technology more accessible to young people,”
says Erb, “and especially to young women – which could help to counteract the
shortage of qualified professionals in technical occupations.”
52
this aquatic fern (above) is considered a pest in many places. But seen in detail (below), it reveals its ability to capture tiny air bubbles.
Bionics has become a standard element
in product development in many industries. In the automotive industry, trees
are being used as models for the design
of components to make them lighter.
After all, trees only form additional biomass at points where forces have to be
transmitted. That gives them a slender
overall structure. And tire manufacturers have learned a lesson from panthers,
which make the surface area of their paws
larger when they want to decelerate from
running at full speed. Today, tires are also
able to change their geometry in response
to certain situations. The wings of condors
served aircraft as a model for the design
of winglets, the end sections of wings that
point upward, thus mitigating the effects
of turbulence and saving jet fuel.
Just a few years ago, only flora and
fauna experts were familiar with examples like these. Bionics was a kind of playground for biologists and zoologists who
publish fine books with color images of
plants, but it hardly generated any interest among engineers working in product
development. But why? Well, at the universities these departments were clearly
separated for the most part. If prospective
engineers and biologists had any contact
at all, it was at university parties attended by an interdisciplinary crowd. Even
the Association of German Engineers
(VDI) discovered the topic fairly late in
the game. This year, the VDI presented a
draft of an ISO norm for differentiating
between bionic and conventional development processes.
So now it’s a lot easier to get started: “Bionics browsers” that are accessible by the public, like the one at the
website asknature.org, make it possible
for researchers to determine which phenomenon found in nature might provide
a solution for a given technical problem.
A similar approach is being used by the
Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft
und Organisation (IAO) with its BIOPS
initiative. “BIOPS” stands for “biologyinspired problem-solving.”
In safety technology, for example, the
sea urchins of the Cidaridae family have
a good chance of joining the ranks of the
problem-solvers. Using its large, blunt
spines, this aquatic creature can wedge
itself into a reef and protect itself from
predators that try to get at its underside,
01.09.11 14:12
The fire beetle
(below) has infrared
receptors (at right)
that allow it to
detect forest fires at
great distances.
PhOtOgraPhy: PrOf. Schmitz (fire beetle); NeeS iNStitute Of the uNiverSit y Of bONN, martiN mül
A beetle that flies to forest fires
Melanophila acuminata, otherwise known
as the black fire beetle, and its sense organs
are also drawing the attention of bionics
experts. The insect is unusual because it can
fly directly to forest fires – in order to find
pine trees whose bast fibers have suffered
fire damage. That’s the only setting where
its larvae can develop to maturity. Bionics
specialists from caesar (center of advanced
european studies and research) in Bonn are
currently developing a microchip that will
make it possible to use this ability as the basis
for an alarm system that would detect infrared radiation from a fire faster than ever
before, and in minuscule amounts.
One of today’s undisputed stars in
bionics is the elephant, or more precisely
its trunk. The animal’s extremity is a great
example of the ingenious systems nature
has created. The more than 40,000 individual muscle fibers in the trunk allow
it to move precisely and freely in every
direction. The trunk has relatively little
mass, but it can lift heavy weights, including that of entire tree trunks. That’s why
a team of German researchers from the
company Festo AG in Esslingen and the
Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing
Engineering and Automation (IPA) in
Stuttgart have been using its principles
in their “bionic handling assistant.” The
assisting arm weighs less than two kilograms, has a range of movement of about
one meter, and is designed to make teamwork by humans and machines efficient
and safe – in industry, agriculture, and
home nursing care.
That’s not possible with conventional
industrial robots. They do reliably perform
many repetitive, difficult tasks. But anyone
who approaches them too closely can suffer bodily harm because these robots are
inflexible and lack sensitivity. The artificial version of the elephant’s trunk, however, can assist people without the risk of
injuring them. Its finger movements are
so gentle and sensitive that they can even
handle raw eggs and soft tomatoes without breaking or bruising them.
The bionic handling assistant is a
pioneering development; that was confirmed in December 2010 when the President of the Federal Republic of Germany personally presented the “Deutscher
Zukunftspreis” (German Future Prize) to
the research team. The prize is presented
annually by Germany’s president in recognition of important technological developments. In 1998 the lotus effect was a
candidate for the prize, although it didn’t
emerge as the winner. But now the bionic
handling assistant has taken the lead and
is ahead of the field “by a nose.” Or, you
might say, by a trunk.
Frank Grünberg
Bionics at Dräger
St154122008
which is less protected by the spines. The
remarkable fact is that its strong covering of spines consists of brittle calcite
(CaCO3), which conventional wisdom
would deem unsuitable for strong components. But researchers, inspired by the
sea urchin, are now searching for ways
to design safety helmets that are lighter
and more permeable than current models, but nevertheless are also stronger.
Dräger is also turning to nature for models to use in the
development of technical products. the protective housing of
the lar 5000 diving apparatus, for example, was inspired
by the shell of the sea turtle. lar stands for “lung automatic
regeneration device.” the first version was launched on the
market in the 1950s, and the product was most recently given
a thorough upgrade in 2010.
the lar 5000 is a closed circuit diving apparatus for
military use. the exhaled breathing gas doesn’t escape; instead,
it is processed and mixed with fresh oxygen, so no bubbles
are released to reveal the diver’s position. the heart of the apparatus is made up of
the lung demand valve, the exhalation bag, and the sodalime container, whose me
chanisms are protected by a protective “shell.” the strength of the shell, which primarily
consists of carbon fiberreinforced plastic, is boosted by four rails screwed onto its
surface. the protective casing also features a streamlined teardrop shape for lower
resistance in the water.
53
01.09.11 14:12
Serv ice HeadquarterS
Dräger Medical GmbH
Moislinger Allee 53–55
23558 Lübeck, Germany
Tel +49 451 882-0
Fax +49 451 882 37 79
Dräger Safety AG & Co. KGaA
Revalstraße 1
Tel +49 451 882-0
Fax +49 451 882 20 80
auStraLia Draeger Medical Australia Pty Ltd.
Unit 97, 45 Gilby Road
Mount Waverley, VIC, 3149
Tel 1800 800 327 (AU)
Fax 1800 010 327 (AU)
Tel 0800 559 186 (NZ)
Fax 0800 559 185 (NZ)
Draeger Safety Pacific Pty Ltd.
Unit 99, 45 Gilby Road
Mount Waverley, VIC, 3149
Tel 1800 67 77 87 (AU)
Fax 1800 64 74 84 (AU)
Tel 0800 372 437 (NZ)
Fax 0800 733 133 (NZ)
canada Draeger Médical Canada Inc.
120 East Beaver Creek Road Suite 104
Richmond Hill Ontario L4B 4V1
Tel +1 (905) 763-3702
Toll-free +1 866 343-2273
Fax +1 (905) 763-1890
Draeger Safety Canada Ltd.
7555 Danbro Crescent
Mississauga, Ontario L5N 6P9
Tel +1 (905) 821-8988
Toll-free +1 877 372-4371
Fax +1 (905) 821-2565
Singapore
Draeger Medical South East Asia Pte. Ltd.
25 International Business Park
#04-20/21 German Centre
Singapore 609930
Tel +65 63 08 94 00
Fax +65 63 08 94 35
Draeger Safety Asia Pte. Ltd.
67 Ayer Rajah Crescent #06-03
Singapore 139950
Tel +65 68 72 92 88
Fax +65 65 12 19 08
united KingdoM Draeger Medical UK Ltd.
The Willows Mark Road
Hemel Hempstead
Hertfordshire HP2 7BW
Tel +44 14 42 21 35 42
Fax +44 14 42 24 03 27
Draeger Safety UK Ltd.
Blyth Riverside Business ParkBlyth,
Northumberland NE24 4RG
Tel +44 167 03 52-891
Fax +44 167 03 56-266
itaLy Draeger Medical Italia S.p.A.
Via Galvani 720094 Corsico/Milano
Tel +39 02 45 87 21
Fax +39 02 4 58 45 15
Dräger Safety Nederland B.V.
Edisonstraat 53
2700 AH Zoetermeer
Tel +31 793 44 46 66
Fax +31 793 44 47 90
Sweden Dräger Medical Sverige AB
Ekbacksvägen 22
168 69 Bromma
Tel +46 8 564 598 00
Fax +46 8 564 598 20
Dräger Safety Sverige AB
Ögärdesvägen 19 D
433 30 Partille
Tel +46 313 40 90 90
Fax +46 313 40 90 99
rep. oF SoutH aFrica Dräger Medical South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
PO Box 4676
Rivonia, 2128
Tel +27 11 557 23 00
Fax +27 11 557 23 01
Dräger South Africa (Pty) Ltd.
P.O.Box 68601
Bryanston 2021
Tel +27 114 65 99 59
Fax +27 114 65 69 53
Draeger Safety Italia S.p.A
Via Longarone 35
20080 Zibido San Giacomo (MI)
Tel +39 02 90 59 49 1
Fax +39 02 90 00 36 86
uSa Draeger Medical, Inc.
3135 Quarry Road
Telford, PA 18969-1042
Tel +1 (215) 721-5400
Toll-free +1 800 437-2437
Fax +1 (215) 723-5935
netHerLandS Dräger Medical Netherlands B.V.
Signaalrood 19
2718 SH Zoetermeer
Tel +31 79 3464 800
Fax +31 79 3422 747
Draeger Safety, Inc.
101 Technology Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15275
Tel +1 (412) 787-8383
Toll-free +1 800 858-1737
Fax +1 (412) 787-2207
www.draeger.com
Part-No.: 90 41 280
corporate HeadquarterS Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA
Moislinger Allee 53–55
the articles in Dräger review provide information on products and their possible applications in general. they do not constitute any guarantee that a product has specific
properties or is suitable for any specific purpose. All specialist personnel are required to make use exclusively of the skills they have acquired through their education
and training and through practical experience. the views, opinions, and statements expressed by the persons named in the texts as well as by the external authors of the
articles do not necessarily correspond to those of Drägerwerk Ag & co. KgaA. Such views, opinions, and statements are solely the opinions of the respective person.
Not all of the products named in this magazine are available worldwide. equipment packages can vary from country to country. we reserve the right to make changes to
products. the current information is available from your Dräger representative. © Drägerwerk Ag & co. KgaA, 2011. All rights reserved. this publication may not be
reproduced, stored in a data system, or transmitted in any form or using any method whether electronic or mechanical, by means of photocopying, recording, or any other
technique in whole or in part without the prior permission of Drägerwerk Ag & co. KgaA.
Dräger Safety AG & Co. KGaA, Lübeck, is the manufacturer of the following products: TRT 7000 (p. 7), FPS 7000 (p. 7), FPS-COM-PLUS (p. 7), Dräger X-am 3000/5000/7000 (p. 18),
Interlock XT (p. 23), Rental Robot (p. 33 ff.), Bodyguard 1000 (p. 38), Parat C (p. 42 ff.), Dräger Alcotest (p. 5, 48 f.), Dräger DrugTest 5000 (p. 46 ff.), LAR 5000 (p. 53), UCF 7000 (p. 56).
The manufacturer of the automatic detector tube pump (Dräger X-act 5000; p. 6) is Draeger Safety, Inc., USA.Dräger Medical GmbH, Lübeck, is the manufacturer of the Fabius Tiro (p. 26).
3277
54
EN_54_Service.indd 54
01.09.11 14:13
HEFT_
Lost in the jungle
of hazardous substances?
Keep on the track to safety – with Dräger.
When working with dangerous substances, you and your employees have to negotiate a multitude of different
challenges. New applications, regulations and substance compositions demand reliable solutions. Let Dräger be
your guide. With our track record and experience in on-the-job safety, Dräger is well equipped to satisfy your exacting requirements and bring you through the jungle safely. From personal protective clothing and innovative gas
measuring technology, to respiratory protection equipment and service solutions that keep you on the right track,
we‘ll work with you to find an optimal solution.
3277
FOR MORE INFORMATION: WWW.DRAEGER.COM/JUNGLE
HEFT_PDF3277_Industrie_Anz_220x280_eng.indd 1
EN_54_Service.indd 55
30.08.11 20:23
01.09.11 14:13
Close - up t he rm al Im agI n g C ame r a
6
4
1
3
5
2
D-111136-2011
snapshots through the smoke
Saving lives is the top priority whenever a fire department is on
a call. When smoke and fumes obscure their view, the rescuers
can turn to a thermal imaging camera such as the Dräger UCf
7000 – which can also be used in hazardous areas where there is
a risk of explosion. It can be operated with one hand, “sees” in the
infrared region at wavelengths between 7 and 14 micrometers, and
shows its images as monochrome videos on its display, because
false-color images are more difficult for inexperienced users to interpret. the camera’s protective window 1 and two-element wideangle lens are made of germanium. this material of the Dräger UCf
7000 is transparent to infrared light waves – unlike glass. the image falls on a camera core that was jointly developed by Jenoptik
and Dräger and uses a bolometer detector. this infrared sensor records the heat radiation with a resolution of 160 x 120 pixels. the
warmer the section of the image, the lower the resistance of the
corresponding pixel of the silicon sensor. the camera electronics
56
EN_U4_CPS7900.indd 56
create a video at 50 frames per second with a sensitivity of 0.035
°C and a measurement range of -40 to +1,000 °C. the most recent two hours of recordings are stored and can be read out via the
USb connector 2 – together with a spoken commentary which is
recorded by the integrated microphone 3 . the push-button “snapshot function” enables users to take snapshots around corners at
arm’s length and then to view them. the laser pointer 4 enables
the user to point out to colleagues hot spots that may not be obvious to the naked eye. Its brightness is automatically controlled by
a sensor 5 . the display, which is equipped with a sunshade 6 ,
displays all the information. Depending on the camera’s operating
mode, areas which are hotter than 110 °C and/or 300 °C are shown
in yellow, orange, and red. the operation and display conform to the
latest north american standard (nfpa 1801:2010), which means
that virtually any firefighter worldwide can reliably operate the unit
– enabling them to take snapshots through the smoke.
Drägerheft 388 | September 2011
01.09.11 14:14

Application example: Hazardous goods transport

Transcription

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