How gloves fail

Abstract

Gloves are routinely used in industry to protect the wearer from injury and industrial diseases, but little is known about their effective service life or where and how they fail, as failed gloves tend to end as contaminated landfill. A commercial glove laundering operation has given a unique opportunity to investigate how gloves fail in many industries. Over 1000 dipped or partially dipped gloves were examined and it was found the most common mode of failure was at the base of the thumb, but failures between the fingers were also common. This appeared to relate to glove design and manufacture. Trials were also performed to determine the consistency of two human glove sorters when they re-sorted the same batch of gloves on different days. With further research to correlate glove appearance with glove performance, it should be possible to develop guidelines for determining the safe service life of gloves