Acute
Acute effects appear shortly after exposure, usually one to three days, while chronic effects take longer to appear, sometimes months or years.
Attendant
The attendant is the individual stationed outside a permit space to perform attendant duties. The attendant’s major function is to monitor and protect the authorized entrants.
Broad Range Sensors
Broad range sensors are sensors that only indicate that a hazardous threshold of a class of chemicals has been reached.
Ceiling Limit
Ceiling limit is an airborne concentration of a toxic substance in the work environment, which should not be exceeded. If instantaneous monitoring is not feasible, then the ceiling is a 15 minute time-weighted average exposure not to be exceeded at any time during the working day.
Chemical Asphyxiants
Chemical asphyxiants are a special category of toxin. They render the body incapable of using an adequate supply of oxygen.
Confined Space
Confined space means a space that:
Is large enough and so configured that an employee can bodily enter and perform assigned work; and
Has limited or restricted means for entry or exit (for example, tanks, vaults and pits are spaces that may have limited means of entry); and is not designed for continuous employee occupancy.
Confined Space Entry
Confined space entry means the action by which a person passes through an opening into a permit-required confined space. Entry includes ensuing work activities in that space and is considered to have occurred as soon as any part of the entrant’s body breaks the plane of an opening into the space.
Eight-hour Weighted Average
The eight-hour weighted average (TWA) refers to concentrations of airborne toxic materials that have been averaged over an eight-hour working day.
Engulfment
Engulfment means the surrounding and effective capture of a person by a liquid or finely divided (flowable) solid substance that can be aspirated to cause death by filling or plugging the respiratory system or that can exert enough force on the body to cause death by strangulation, constriction, or crushing.
EFI
EFI means electromagnetic interference.
Field Calibration
Field calibration means verifying whether an instrument is functioning properly and giving the correct readout within the limits specified by the manufacturer of the span (calibration or cal) gas.
Function Check
A function check, or bump test, means using simple tests (such as exposing sensors to calibration gas or exhaling into the oxygen sensor) to show that the instrument will respond to the chemical(s) of concern and that all alarms operate as they were designed.
IDLH
Immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) means any condition that poses an immediate or delayed threat to life or that would cause irreversible adverse health effects or that would interfere with an individual’s ability to escape unaided from a permit space.
Inerting
Inerting means the displacement of the atmosphere in a permit space by a noncombustible gas (such as nitrogen) to such an extent that the resulting atmosphere is noncombustible. Note: Produces an IDLH oxygen-deficient atmosphere.
LEL
The lower explosive limit, LEL, is the minimum concentration of vapor or gas in air below which propagation of flame does not occur on contact with a source of ignition. Below the LEL there is too little combustible fuel to sustain a flammable mixture.
LFL
The lower flammable limit, LFL, is the minimum concentration of vapor or gas in air below which propagation of flame does not occur on contact with a source of ignition. Below the LFL there is too little combustible fuel to sustain a flammable mixture.
PELs
Permissible exposure limits (PELs) are regulatory limits on the amount or concentration of a substance in the air. They may also contain a skin designation. PELs are enforceable.
Permit-Required Confined Space
Permit-required confined space (permit space) means a confined space that has one or more of the following characteristics:
Contains or has a potential to contain a hazardous atmosphere.
Contains a material that has the potential for engulfing an entrant.
Has an internal configuration such that an entrant could be trapped or asphyxiated by inwardly converging walls or by a floor which slopes downward and tapers to a smaller cross-section.
Contains any other recognized serious safety or health hazard.
Potential Exposure
Potential exposure is when the possibility exists that an employee could be exposed to a hazard because of work patterns, past circumstances, or anticipated work requirements, and it is reasonably predictable that employee exposure could occur at some time during the entry.
RFI
RFI means radio frequency interference.
TWA
The eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA) refers to concentrations of airborne toxic materials that have been averaged over an eight-hour working day.
Upper Explosive Limit
Upper explosive limit (UEL) is the maximum concentration of vapor or gas in air above which propagation of flame does not occur on contact with a source of ignition. Above the UEL there is too little oxygen to sustain a flammable mixture.