Abstract
European Standard EN 271: 1995 deals with the construction of air-fed shotblasting helmets. It specifies minimum requirements for face, eye, and respiratory protection and tests the noise generated by the breathing air supply. However, it does not test the helmet’s ability to attenuate the very high levels of noise generated by the shotblasting process. This is a major omission. A test method was developed for measuring the noise attenuation provided by shotblasting helmets against typical shotblasting noise. It involved objective measurements using the head and torso simulator (HATS) currently prescribed by EN 271, fitted with miniature microphones. Using such a HATS was shown to give attenuation values that correlate well with those measured using human subjects. Results from this project showed: the HATS already used by manufacturers to show compliance of their product with EN 271 can also be used to provide information on the helmet’s noise attenuation; and the same HATS can be used, in place of human subjects, to measure the air supply noise according to the method defined in EN 271. The findings from this work will be used to try to influence future revisions of EN 271 so that the noise attenuation of shotblasting helmets is considered.
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