Antistatic fabrics have become a necessity for personnel involved in manufacturing, working with or servicing electric vehicles. This warning was recently given by Carrington Textiles’ quality assurance manager, Sean Moore. In an interview he explained that ‘grounded’ fabrics for uniforms in this niche sector are necessary to avoid unpleasant effects for workers during the production process.
Since more and more electric vehicles (EVs) are being manufactured and used on the roads nowadays, it not only means challenges on how these cars and their components are produced, but also repaired. These activities require clothing made with antistatic fabrics to be worn by the assembly line personnel and mechanics working on these vehicles. EVs contain innumerable sensitive electronic equipment parts and the battery pack itself can easily be liable to static damage during manufacture, assembly and installation into the car. In extreme cases this can lead to an incendiary discharge or a battery fire.
Moore stated that in order to determine the antistatic performance of any garment worn in both car and battery manufacture and assembly, the defining performance of the antistatic fabric is EN 1149-5. This standard has been designed specifically to define the end-use performance in industrial areas such as electric car manufacturing where static can be a hazard to the vehicle components.