What is ESD Footwear?

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ESD Footwear
ESD Footwear Prevents The Build Up Of Static

Working Person’s Store knows how important it is to carry safety footwear to keep you free from Electrostatic injuries. In ordinary circumstances, static electricity and ESD are little more than an annoyance. However, in an increasingly technological age, the familiar static shock we receive when walking across a carpet can be costly or dangerous. That is why protective footwear is a necessity. This same static discharge can ignite flammable mixtures and damage electronic components. Static electricity can attract contaminants in clean environments or cause products to stick together. Static electricity is defined as an electrical charge caused by an imbalance of electrons on the surface of a material.

This imbalance of electrons produces an electric field that can be measured and that can influence other objects at a distance. Electrostatic discharge is defined as the transfer of charge between bodies at different electrical potential. Static dissipative footwear is designed to reduce the accumulation of excess static electricity by conducting body charge to the ground while maintaining a high enough level of electrical resistance. Static dissipative footwear is defined by ANSI Z41-1999 as any footwear when tested while being worn by a person and having a resistance from the person’s hand to a ground plane of one MegOhm to 1000 MegOhms.