Crash Deck? What is Crash Decking!

About Features Resources Specification & FAQs

Every day we receive enquiries from scaffolding contractors asking us about our “Crash Deck” or “Crash Decking” systems. Construction site professionals often refer to “Crash Decking” when describing a fall prevention system. The term crash decking implies there is going to be some kind of impact & it has come to be associated with the possibility of stopping a falling person or a crash or fall from height. 

The MacDeck system that we provide is an internal fall prevention / work platform for traditional build, timber frame and construction projects. It is designed to prevent falls, not to protect you against them.

As mentioned previously, it could be argued that the term ‘Crash Deck could imply that a person or falling object may be protected if it was to “Crash” into the system. This is something that we advise against, as it is certainly not the case.

With so many people within the construction industry still referring to a fall prevention system and safe working system as Crash Decking, we have created this article to educate and inform construction workers about the difference between fall protection and fall prevention.

We actually advise against using this term. There are two main options available when working at height; Safety Decking such as the market leading MacDeck system, or a fall arrest bag such as the soft-landing system by the Forest Group. Soft Landing Systems (SLS) are generally either air-filled mats or soft-filled mats. These mats are designed to mitigate the risk of injury to workers from a fall from a distance of up to 2.5 meters.

The MacDeck system is a robust working platform which has undergone a rigorous testing regime to ensure we not only comply with UK Health & Safety regulations but surpass them too. Our system which boasts a load capacity of 2.0kn per m2 is the strongest injected moulded panel manufactured worldwide.

If a worker is safe working on top of a fall prevention system, like Macdeck, he is safe and secure & he cannot fall. When a worker falls into a soft-landing system or a fall arrest bag, the g-force is limited. The worker will hopefully land safely onto a cushioned bag. .

Let’s take a look at one of our testing videos. This should help you to gain a better understanding of what would happen when a 70kg bag is dropped centrally onto our MacDeck system…

JMAC Safety Systems MacDeck Training

One the past last 18 months, the MacDeck system has undergone various testing regimes by Loughborough and Teesside University. Impact testing, to show that the tensile strength of system is not affected by UV exposure or drops from height.

The British Standard for impact testing is a 45kg sand bag, dropped three times from a height of 1.2 meters. As part of our testing, we dropped a 70kg sandbag from 2.8 meters, three times, and our panels showed no signs of damage on impact.

You can see how the 70kg bag of sand bounces off the Safety Decking without damaging it. Our Safety Decking has been designed to withstand the same load capacity as general-purpose scaffold — 2kn per m2.

Falls From Height

When thinking about workers falling from height it would be a completely different scenario if an 80kg worker accidentally fell from height onto the deck.

Think about an 80kg worker falling as a dead weight – similar to the example in the video above. From a 1-meter distance, a fall on to the ‘crash deck’ that yields no more than 2cm would cause a G-force exposure of about 50G (with 1g being the equivalent to the earth’s gravitational pull).

MacDeck is designed to flex and absorb some of the shock of falling objects but is not designed to protect a human when falling from height. The more rigid the ‘Crash Deck’ the greater the G-force that would be exerted upon the worker. If the “Crash Deck” only yields 1cm, the force exerted to the worker is doubled to 100g.

Let’s think about that for one second using a real a world scenario…

According to GSU’s HyperPhysics Project, an 80kg person wearing a seat belt and travelling at only 30 mph experiences around 45g’s of force in a front-end collision with a fixed object. This would feel like getting hit with a mass of around 3.6 tons of force. Yet if the passenger is wearing a seatbelt at this G-force, they could come away with superficial injuries.

Crash Deck

Crash Deck

The higher the G-force exerted upon the body, the more serious the injuries…

For this reason, the term “Crash Deck” is a little bit misleading and we believe that it should never be used when describing Safety Decking. Safety Decking should never be considered as an option to protect someone from falls from height. An impact onto Safety Decking from the top of a scaffold could cause an internal bleeding or internal injuries which can lead to organ shutdown, traumatic brain injuries, or even death.

MacDeck Safety Decking

MacDeck provides a safe solution for working at height which allows your operatives to work in confidence knowing they have the strongest and most robust safety platform under their feet.  People work more efficiently on a profiled non-slip surface with high visibility and our fall prevention system also comes with a dual locking pin safety feature which can be viewed from above to show that the system is locked correctly.

We’re confident you’ll love MacDeck just as much as we do.