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Testing for Child Safety
Small children may not yet be purchase decision makers. They are however consumers of products, and their safety must be considered at each product's design stage.
Force and Torque Testing for Child Safety
Whatever products we use, it is likely that at stages during their design and manufacture technical Standards developed to protect our safety were applied. Such precautions become particularly critical when the 'end-users' are likely to be young children. Often measurement of product response to compressive, tensile or torsional loads is required.
Many independent test laboratories, and increasingly product manufacturers, specifiers, importers, and retailers themselves, rely upon cost-effective and easy-to-use testing systems designed by Mecmesin to meet particular regulations.
Children apply compressive load to teething rings and tensile or torsional loads to to plastic eyes and noses of cuddly toys. Therefore Mecmesin provide special force gauge accessories which, by simulating the action of jaws or inquisitive little fingers, allow products to be evaluated against pertinent Standards, EN71 (1998) Part 1, for example.
Products with an obviously safety-related role must also respond adequately to loads applied by children; car-seat safety harnessess, for example. Although latch disengagement could be initiated by applying sufficient tensile force to the strapping, so too could this accidentally occur by applying relatively little compression to the release button!
(Photograph can be obtained from Chris Grant, Sales & Marketing Co-ordinator, Mecmesin Limited)
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