The free fall tower enables the Centre to perform free or guided fall tests to simulate a worker or climber falling from a given height.

The infrastructure provides assessment services to the relevant standard, for the following equipment: harnesses, energy absorbing lanyards, locking devices on rigid or flexible anchor lines and equipment or subsystem components such as connectors, auxiliary ropes, lanyards, webbing, pulleys and bushings.

Testing equipment on the tower is performed with either a rigid weight or a dummy, depending on the type of equipment to be tested. One of the two weights, as applicable, is fitted to the PPE and the PPE is connected to the structure of the free fall tower.

After connecting the device to the load cell which will record the test values, the mass is raised to the height required by the standard and allowed to fall freely so that the PPE performs the function for which it was designed. Once the test data has been obtained, it is compared with the requirements of the standard to evaluate the results.

AITEX is fully equipped to offer a full range of testing including the free-fall tower and a specific jacket slider for climbing ropes. It is the only private laboratory in Spain boasting this infrastructure, performance and versatility, and with the capacity to evaluate PPE against falls from height under the corresponding regulations. All our testing facilities are ENAC approved.