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The first of the general objectives of the National Strategy in the field of health and safety at work for the period 2018 - 2020 in Romania was “a better implementation of the choice of occupational safety and health legislation, especially in micro-enterprises and SMEs”.In this context, this paper presents the main vulnerabilities of management in SMEs, where the occupational safety and health component has a formal role being strongly influenced by economic factors. The first part presents a statistical situation of the verification campaigns, carried out in the last 3 years by Labor Inspection, on how SMEs have implemented health and safety legislation in their activities, subsequently, an analysis is made of the economic factors that have limited the development of health and safety management. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis is presented on the economic consequences that occur in the event of an accident and / or illness that demonstrates the theory that economic factors influence the management of health and safety and health specific to SMEs both before and after an event occurs.

According to the ATEX directive, any personal protective equipment or work equipment intended to be used in a potentially explosive area must be made of materials that cannot be the source of mechanical or static electricity-related sparks. The carbon steel is one of the most widely used metallic materials, but the possibility of using it in the manufacture of equipment used in explosive environments is low. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present an alternative solution to use metal equipment in potentially explosive atmospheres, by depositing a phosphate layer on the surface of the carbon steel. The metal was coated by a simple process, the metal being immersed in a phosphating solution based on zinc. Due to the properties of zinc phosphate deposited on the steel surface, especially electrical insulating, the steel coated with this type of layer can be used in explosive atmosphere.

In few specific applications the explosive potential of environment in case of sparks presence is very high, like petroleum or natural gaseous media or even grain mills, and usage of non-sparking materials is extremely important. The damage produce by an explosion can be more expensive, 1000 times, than the cost of the metallic elements that can produce sparks. In case of working gears, that can produce sparks in time, is recommended the use of special metallic materials. The most used material for gears is steel and in this case can be replaced with a bronze with aluminum and beryllium to reduce the possibility of sparks production. In this article the obtaining of an aluminum bronze with beryllium is analyzed and is considered the possibility to use it as alloy for gears proposed for explosive environments.

In cases where an explosive atmosphere contains several types of inflammable and/or combustible gases, steams or powders, the protection measures must be appropriate to the highest possible danger. However, the employer must pay special attention to the workplace and to any factor that can influence the working conditions, especially to those related to the workers. Therefore, any device, tool or equipment used by the human operator must possess special properties. In addition to protective clothing, workers who work at heights must receive personal protective equipment against falling that includes multiple linking elements known as carabiners. The carabiners used in this equipment must be made of non-sparking material. The aim of this paper is to propose a spark characteristic improvement of carbon steel used in carabiners manufacturing by deposition of zinc phosphate coating.

In a continuously changing world where the human operator still plays an important role in most industrial activities, health and safety occupies a fundamental place, with the goal of maintaining workers healthy and in safe condition during their job activities. One of the means that make this goal achievable is the use of adequate personal protective equipment. The carabiners are connecting parts that link the components quickly and reversibly of personal protective equipment used against falls. Thus shackles can be divided in multiple elements, such as: the gate, which always opens inward and can be provided with or without the locking system, the second and the biggest element is the body which can have different form according to the BS EN 12275:2013 standard, the gate and the body are connected thru the rivet pin and nose. The personal fall arrest system used in areas such as construction, speleology, petroleum industry, includes metal components that must possess high mechanical properties, especially shock-resistance. In order to improve resilience, a layer of rubber paint will be deposited on the carabiner surface. The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of rubber coating on the carabiners shock resistance.