Transmission of vibrations from portable agricultural machinery to the hand-arm system (HAV): risk evaluation and definition of exposure time for daily action and exposure limits.

Abstract

Every day agro-forestry workers are exposed to health and safety risks, due to work environment and the machineries they use. Some of these risks, vibrations for example, are usually underestimated by workers as well, because vibrations do not represent an immediate risk for the health. The vibrations can cause some professional diseases whose symptoms can appear after many years too. This is not a good reason to ignore the problem; in fact the consequences of a long exposure time can be very serious. A deeper knowledge of diseases caused by vibrations, laws, the best precautions and safety systems can represent a start to limit the phenomenon. The research about agro-forestry machineries can represent a stimulus to use ergonomic instruments in order to guarantee the health and the safety of the workers. The present research aims to highlight the importance of the exposure to vibrations in agro-forestry sector and its consequences on human health, above all the risks for the hand-arm system during the working day. Every machine has been directly analyzed to establish the level of vibrations produced according to the laws in force and the most recent ISO norms. With the collected data it was possible to establish the maximum exposure times for every instrument in order to respect the European Directive 2002/44/CE of 25 June 2002 on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (vibrations).