In the last couple of years we have come across a vicious and BADLY MISLEADING rumor that some facilities have fallen for and thus they have fallen out of compliance with OSHA/NIOSH/DOT in regards to their SCBA Cylinders.
FACT: There are studies that have been done by the U.S. Navy and PHMSA that demonsrate 15-year service life is very conservative and with a different type of testing, the cylinders service life could be safely extended.
LIE: A facility can adopt Modal Acoustic Emission (MAE) testing and extend their cylinders service life based on the test results.
There is a LOT MORE to these studies and we can NEVER wander away from the cylinder’s and/or the holder of the NIOSH approval “maintenance requirements”. Here is a look at the studies and how we got to this point. BUT BEWARE… we MUST STILL FOLLOW the cylinder manufacturer or the NIOSH certificate holder’s test frequency for their cylinders! We are NOT allowed to adopt Modal Acoustic Emission (MAE) as an alternative to Hydrostatic Testing WITHOUT WRITTEN APPROVAL from…