Considerations for Safety in University-based Test Operations at the UAH Propulsion Research Center

摘要

Keeping students and university researchers engaged in advancing propulsion technologies through research and education is important for advancing technology and workforce development. Keeping those people safe is important for everyone. The purpose of this paper is to outline seven safety considerations that we have utilized at the Propulsion Research Center (PRC) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) to carry out university research projects. The overall objective of our practices is to ensure that no one gets hurt and nothing "expensive" gets broken. Considerations include our university safety resources, a facility usage policy, a safety plan, a test facility site plan, past incident reports, formal training and inspections, external reviews, and personal responsibility. The discussion shows how our perspective on safety has changed from the time we were a just few people performing simple experiments in 1991, to an organization involving over one-hundred people with about 20 to 30 of them engaged in activities that require special safety considerations.