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Rope Access Overview

Rope access is a manual system of providing access that, when adapted to standard mountaineering and caving techniques and equipment, allows safe, cost-efficient access to a work or rescue site. Major advantages of rope access include:

•  The system is quick to assemble and disassemble and requires a small number of personnel for a short time. Thus the number of man-risk hours is kept to a minimum.
•  Because the installation and dismantling of the system is rapid, there is minimal disruption to building occupants, pedestrians and traffic flow.
• The system can be dismantled at the end of each shift, minimizing the potential for vandalism and theft.
• Cost is lower than most other access methods, such as scaffolding, lifts and powered platforms.

PowerQuick rope access is ideal for sites where access is difficult or impossible by other means and/or where there are no in-situ cradles or scaffolding or other platforms, and where the type of work to be done is suitable for the application of such techniques. Examples are:

• High-rise buildings
• Bridges
• Road-side cliffs
• Shafts
• Masts and towers
• Oil Derricks

Rope access is best used for light to medium tasks. Examples include:

• Inspection and testing

• Maintenance and repair
• Cleaning and painting
• Window cleaning
• Geotechnical (civil engineering)
• Rock fall prevention netting
• Search and rescue
• Military-specific applications
• Tactical assault
• Ship boarding
• Stealth aircraft hot shutdown and pilot extraction

Designed for Safety

Development began in December 2001 under a DARPA Phase I SBIR. The objective of the Phase I effort was to conduct an engineering feasibility investigation for a lightweight, man-portable lifting system, and demonstrate the concept with a prototype. Under this contract, Quoin designed and successfully demonstrated a prototype, one-person lightweight man-portable winch. 

Discussions with DARPA personnel, local mountain rescue personnel, and with contacts within the Special Forces community provided valuable insight that helped optimize the system design. User input dictated that the device should be totally capable of single-man operation.   The Ascender was designed to meet Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) and other international safety requirements.

Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components were utilized to the maximum extent possible.  All components, whether COTS or custom designed, meet OSHA defined safety requirements.  For design purposes, and in the selection of vendor provided items, all calculations used a safety factor of at least two (2).

Failure Modes and Effects analysis

Component and system level testing was conducted through every phase of development.  A Failure Modes and Effects analysis was conducted to identify potential accident scenarios related to personnel climbing with the PowerQuick powered ascender. A quantitative risk category was assigned to each potential failure in accordance with MIL STD 882D. This ranking is determined by considering the probability, severity and frequency of the occurrence.