Reducing whole-body vibration exposure in backhoe loaders by education of operators

Abstract

Whole-body vibration is a health hazard for operators of construction machinery. The level of whole-body vibration exposure on the operator is governed by three different factors; performance of the suspension system of the machine, planning of the work and the skills of the operator.In this research work it is investigated whether there is a potential in bringing down the level of whole-body vibration exposure by educating operators of backhoe loaders. This is carried out by an experimental setup. Six experienced operators participated in the experiments carried out on two different sizes of backhoe loaders. Each operator had to complete three different tasks without any kind of instructions. Subsequently they got a short education on eco-driving and vibration avoidance and carried out the tasks once more. Time duration, whole-body vibration exposure and fuel consumption was registered before and after education.The result of the short education was an average reduction in the wholebody vibration exposure of 22.5%. And for all completed tasks expect one a considerably fuel saving was obtained too -up to 38%. This experiment * Tel.: +45 98371333; Fax.: +45 98379912Email addresses: thl@m-tech.aau.dk (Thomas H. Langer), tki@hydrema.com (Thorkil K. Iversen), nika@mercantec.dk (Niels K. Andersen), oom@m-tech.aau.dk (Ole Ø. Mouritsen), michael.r.hansen@uia.no (Michael R. Hansen) Preprint submitted to International Journal of Industrial ErgonomicsApril 25, 2012 demonstrates that education of the operator will improve the occupational health and save fuel. The results also indicate that these improvements can be obtained without reduction in productivity as the instructions become a habit for the operators. Thus it is profitable for the employer to educate the employees operating construction machinery. The findings of this work is highly relevant to the construction industry. It shows a great potential in reducing damaging vibration and at the same time reduce fuel consumption. It also emphasizes the need for better education of machine operators.

Occupational Safety and Health Education and Training: A Latent Dirichlet Allocation Systematic Literature Review

“…§ Topic 3: studies on safety commitment of managers, owners and leaders, which impacts on safety outcomes[20][21][22][23][24][25]. § Topic 4: studies on the effects of safety education and training on workers, which consider behaviour change, situation awareness and other measures for efficacy[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. § Topic 5: studies on education programs provided to young or inexperienced workers to increase their level of knowledge and risk awareness[35][36][37][38][39].…”

Preventive action with a population of excavator drivers exposed to whole-body vibration

“…An experimental study was conducted [ 22 ] on 6 backhoe loader operators by comparing vibration levels before and after education. They found that providing of the short education is an average reduction in the whole-body vibration exposure of 22.5%.…”

Preliminary identification and evaluation of parameters affecting the capacity of the operator-earthmoving machine system

“…Szczegółowo badane były m. in. takie czynniki jak wibracje [22][23][24][25], poziom hałasu [26,27], stres [28,29]. Szczególn uwag zwraca si na wpływ czynników na ilo wypadków [30].…”