Antistatic garments

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Anti-static clothing (garments) is required to prevent damage to electrical components or to prevent fires and explosions when working with flammable liquids and gases.

If not controlled, static electricity can cause product damage and lead to machinery downtime, lost man hours, returned products and warranty costs particularly in the semiconductor and electronics industries.

Antistatic garments are used in many industries such as electronics, communications, telecommunications and defense applications. Static electricity is generally harmless to the individual but it causes US$5 bn of damage to products each year in the electronics and computer industry.

As computers and electronics become ever more pervasive in consumer products so an increasing number of manufacturers will need to apply anti-static control measures. One such measure is antistatic apparel because people are the greatest source of static charge in the workplace.

The amount of static electricity we feel varies according to factors such as our body and foot size a larger body and bigger feet require more charge to be stored to produce the same voltage. The material our clothes are made from and the soles of our shoes can influence static electricity too. Weather affects it as well. There is more build-up of static charge when the air is dry.

Most people feel harmless shocks at around 2,000-4,000 volts. However electrical components can be damaged by as little as a few volts. It is estimated that between eight percent and 33 percent of product losses - the proportion of products which are rendered faulty - are due to static electricity.