Engineered to vastly reduce repetitive stress injuries while significantly increasing work performance, an industrial tilter is a pivotal machine used in manufacturing. The comprehensive safety, design, and performance criteria to ensure the safe application and utilization of industrial tilters are detailed in ANSI MH29.2-2020: Safety Requirements For Industrial Tilters.
What Is an Industrial Tilter?
Industrial tilters are devices used to tilt a wide range of load types from 1 to 90 degrees. They are useful in repositioning heaving equipment, containers, coil spools, and parts. Important qualities of tilters are rating for high capacity loads, fast cycle times, reliability, and long service life. A common application of a tilter is parts sorting, that is, when a container of parts is tilted toward the operator (i.e., a trained person controlling the movement of the tilter) to reduce potentially harmful stretching motions. A key safety feature of tilters is its ability to place loads at specific heights and angles to accommodate differences in the height of the operator. Tilters are beneficial because they allow workers to avoid unnecessary stretching, lifting, and bending that may cause fatigue and increase the risk of accidents in various industrial environments.
The ANSI MH29.2-2020 Standard for Industrial Tilters
ANSI MH29.2-2020 applies to industrial tilters that are rotated about a horizontal axis by means of hydraulic, pneumatic, mechanical, or electro/mechanical actuation. Specifically, the industrial tilters in the scope of this American National Standard can be stationary or movable and are generally used to position, feed, transfer, load, or unload materials. The standard specifies that tilters shall be stable (i.e., will not overturn) under all operating conditions, whether stationary or moving, when properly installed. Factors that typically affect safety requirements for the stability of industrial tilters in ANSI MH29.2-2020 are load position, dynamic and static forces applied to the platform or forks, weight of the tilter, and any other static weight added to the tilter platform or forks, and the stance/width of the tilter’s base.
This standard, developed by MHI, along with the Lift Manufacturers Product Group (LIFT), one of its Industry Groups, is intended to provide useful information and guidance for owners, users, designers, purchasers, or specifiers of material handling equipment or systems.
The Objectives of ANSI MH29.2-2020
ANSI MH29.2-2020 pertains to industrial tilters to achieve the following objectives:
- Prevention of personal injuries and accidents (largely from bending over to lift heavy loads)
- Establishment of criteria for design, manufacture, performance, and operation
- Understanding by designers, manufacturers, owners/users, and operators of their respective responsibilities
What Equipment Is Not Covered in ANSI MH29.2-2020?
Here is the equipment that is explicitly excluded in the scope of the standard:
- Dumpers or upenders where angular travel exceeds 110 degrees
- Invertors and rotators
- Refuse dumpers
- Self-dumping hoppers
- Truck mounted dump bodies
ANSI MH29.2-2020: Safety Requirements For Industrial Tilters is available on the ANSI Webstore.
