The Ins and Outs of Conductive Footwear

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Conductive Footwear

 

A typical human body may carry around 12,000 to 35,000 volts of electrostatic charges. Conductive footwear provides a continuous grounding path between the human body and an ESD flooring. Conductive footwear is designed to keep you protected when potential electrical hazards are present.

Conductive footwear is designed to discharge static electricity from the body through your shoes into grounded floors. Floors must be grounded so that a charge can be dissipated. Conductive footwear is designed and manufactured to minimize static electricity and to reduce the possibility or ignition of volatile chemicals, explosives or explosive dusts.

The main points of conductive footwear are that when tested the footwear is “unworn”. The voltage used to test is 500 Volts. The probe is 2.5 inches in diameter and is all metal. The resistance of this type of footwear is between 0 and 500,000 Ohms. There are no sub-classifications of conductive footwear in this standard after 1999.

Conductive footwear is defined by ANSI Z41-1999 as any unworn footwear having a resistance of zero (0) to five hundred thousand (500,000) Ohms.

The main points to note in this section of the standard are that:

1. The footwear is to “unworn” when tested.
2. The voltage is to be 500 Volts.
3. The probe is 2.5 inches in diameter and is all metal.
4. The resistance of this type footwear is between 0 and 500,000 Ohms.
5. There are no sub-classifications of conductive footwear in this standard after 1999.

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