Assessment of occupational noise exposure in tyre manufacturing

Abstract

According to the legislation in force the employer has a responsibility to evaluate and to measure the noise levels to which workers are exposed, paying special attention: level, type and duration of noise. Noise risk assessment is critical to protecting workers from the risks that threaten their health and safety from noise exposure. The noise risk assessment identifies the workers exposed to the risk generated by the noise and determines their level of noise exposure to ensure that the maximum noise exposure limit is not exceeded. When the worker exposure is exceeded, the noise becomes a risk for safety and health, because high noise levels cause hearing loss and this is irreversible. Also, stress from time spent at a high noise level was associated with increased workplace accident rates. This paper presents a technical method for measuring noise exposure in working environment using homogeneous noise exposure groups. The measuring process requires observation and analysis of all noise exposure conditions so that the quality of the measurements can be controlled. The uncertainty of the results is also taken into account. More than half of the workers were investigated during the research (over 900 workers), covering all the production workplaces. The results of the measurements obtained according to this method provided useful informations in order to define the main priorities regarding noise control measures.