In February this year i was at work on a ship. I am a ships cook. I was working with a stainless steel 2 meter high wagon with 50 compartments for food trays of different metal types.I should plast in the complete wagon with a large plastic roll.when i started to drag the plastic around the wagon on one corner of the wagon i was hit very hard on my elbow with static electricity,it really hurt,i continued to go around again and on the same corner i was hit on the same place on my elbow,in total i was hit on my elbow 8 times the last 3 or 4 times was such a strong current that i could see flashes.By the time the wagon was fully covered i could not touch the wagon as it seemed to be loaded with a electric charge or it was me that was load with a charge after so many shocks. I was admitted to hospital for a few days and ended up with serious nerve damage to my arm and fingers, i have damage to all three nerves and was not able to work from that.What was the cause of so strong static electricity?and why was it so aggressive to start with only on one side,
If I’m parsing your post correctly, it sounds like you were wrapping the food wagon in stretchy pallet wrap, is that correct?
Static charge can develop when two materials make contact with each other and then separate, with at least one of them having a high electrical resistance. In this case, the stretch wrap made contact with itself when it was wrapped on the roll at the factory when it was first manufactured - and then stretch wrap was separated from itself as you peeled it off of the roll. Applying it to the food wagon may have allowed the charge to accumulate on the wagon itself, especially if it was on non-conductive wheels. If you were dispensing a lot of wrap, then you were creating a lot of static charge.
Here’s plastic being unrolled in a factory, resulting in extremely large static discharge sparks. These sparks look big enough to be potentially hazardous; they are lightning in miniature.
Apparently static charge buildup on plastic films is a known problem; it can injure employees, and it can damage sensitive electronics.
I had a similar shock experience once with a sandblaster, though not as severe as what you had. Blowing sand at an object creates static charge, and in this case the charge somehow was dissipating as shocks from my arm to the armhole in the blasting cabinet. No injury, but it was strong enough to make my arm twitch significantly every time it happened. I later solved the problem by grounding the blasting cabinet, especially the metal grate on which parts sat while they were being blasted; no shocks after that.
Yes. Stainless is not the best conductor, but it’s still conductive. When the film is applied to the cart, the charge on the film is transferred to the cart. Somewhat like a Van de Graaff generator.
A co-worker of mine just spent some quality time in a hospital after receiving a shock from static electricity. This should not happen here is an airplane factory, all planes are required to be grounded, power on or off. A quick investigation found the grounding cable had not been installed.
Lightning is literally caused by static electricity generated by clouds, when the charge jumps from cloud to cloud or from cloud to the ground. As such, it is not surprising that static electricity could hurt you.
It’s possible for insulated metal structures that are high in the air (like a metal church steeple) to develop a huge charge.
People have been knocked off their ladders when then reached out and got hit by a mini lightning bolt.
The charge is developed by a combination of height (100v/meter) and wind charging.
I’ve been to a factory that makes transparent plastic containers for food. Visualize the material for containers that a grocery store cake or fast food salad or other produce might be packed into. The rolls are about 8 feet long and 20 inches in diameter, 2-3000 lbs each. The static as those rolls were being unrolled was a lot like in this video. Two things aren’t captured in the video, though. The ozone smell was always there. But, most memorable were the sharp cracking sounds each time one of the discharges occurred. It was the sort of thing you’d recognize as dangerous even before you saw the sparks/bolts. To be honest, I didn’t even like turning my back on them from 20 feet away. ‘Unnerving’ sums it up.
Snow static can be a problem on amateur radio (and other) antennas. Imagine this hitting your sensitive receiver every couple of seconds during a blizzard. Keep your coax unplugged when not using your rig!