Using a noise monitoring station in a small quarry located in an urban area

Abstract

Mining plays an important role in Brazilian exports. On the other hand, large urban centers like São Paulo, with approximately 21 million inhabitants, also demand an increasing domestic consumption of natural resources, such as construction aggregate. There are many quarries located in the surroundings of urban centers in Brazil, competing with the growth of urbanized areas. Such proximity leads to a series of conflicts involving quarries and surrounding communities, where the increase in noise levels is highlighted. Operations in quarries, in general, are intermittent. Noisier equipment, such as drilling rigs and primary crushers, operates only a few hours during the day, while other operations, such as screening and secondary and tertiary crushing, are more constant. This paper presents a study carried out in a quarry located near São Paulo, where in addition to conventional short term noise measurements at surrounding receptors, one noise monitoring station was installed, allowing to identify the noisiest moments during the quarry operating time. Through data transmitted by wireless technology, it was possible to follow the noise variations emitted from mining activities in real time and observe the noisiest events that were recorded for events that exceeded the established standards. A mobile application associated to this monitoring station facilitated the quarry's manager and employees to access immediately the monitoring information. Therefore, by using this system, it was possible to evaluate the effectiveness of noise reduction measures already taken and indicate what steps still need to be held.

Short review on occupational noise exposure in the extractive industry and similar works

“…Given that this study's aim is related to occupational exposure to noise, the experimental data was classified according to the measurement setting, which is provided in Table 1, divided into activity, equipment, job category, and working area. (Srivastava et al, 2010) x (Gupta, Roy, & A. Rajan B, 2012) x (Kerketta et al, 2012) x (Melo Neto et al, 2012) x (Onder et al, 2012) x (Cinar & Sensogut, 2013) x (Gyamfi, Amankwaa, Owusu Sekyere, & Boateng, 2016) x (Kosała & Stępień, 2016) x x (Lokhande et al, 2017) x (Simion et al, 2017) x (Lilic et al, 2018) x (Wichers et al, 2018) x (Çınar & Şensöğüt, 2019) (Lee et al, 2019) x (Mihut, 2019) x…”

“…The selected equipment for each study is detailed in Table 2. (Gupta et al, 2012) Jack hammer drill (Cinar & Sensogut, 2013) Bulldozer, cone crusher, excavator, grader, hydraulic hammer, jaw crusher, mill, sieve, truck (Gyamfi et al, 2016) Drilling machine, tyre wrench, lathe machine, block making machine, generator set, crusher machine, primary processing machine, secondary processing machine, excavator machine, air compressor (Kosała & Stępień, 2016) Crusher, siever, vibrating feeder, wheel conveyor, conveyor, dispenser aggregate for the loading silo (Simion et al, 2017) Bucket-wheel excavator (Lilic et al, 2018) Truck, shovel, bulldozer, drilling rig, grader, crusher, belt conveyor (Wichers et al, 2018) Asphalt mixer, drilling rig, crushing plant (Lee et al, 2019) Air compressor, breaker, bulldozer, compactor, crusher, drill, excavator, grader, jack hammer, loader, roller (Mihut, 2019 Truck, tractor, motor hacksaw, charger, bulldozer, excavator…”

“…Fourteen out of the fifteen papers were in the mining industry and one in the construction industry despite describing similar works. Specifically related to tasks, only the blasting operation was addressed (Kosała & Stępień, 2016;Srivastava et al, 2010), although the list of operations that stand as noise sources (Wichers et al, 2018). On the other hand, regarding equipment, a plethora of examples were provided: bulldozer, jaw and cone crusher, different kinds of sieves, conveyor, excavator, truck, shovel, among many others.…”

“…In the extractive industry context, every task and equipment is fairly associated with noise: drilling and blasting, rock and ore transportation, the movement of the machines themselves such as trucks, excavators, bulldozers and many others (Lilic, Cvjetic, Knezevic, Milisavljevic, & Pantelic, 2018;Wichers, Iramina, de Eston, & Ayres da Silva, 2018). Similarly, earthworks, as an example of similar works, uses the same processes and machines, therefore poses the same risks.…”

Behavior of Active and Passive Noise Reduction Personal Protective Equipment: A Case Study in a Limestone Quarry Plant

“…It's known that in quarry plants workers can be exposed to high levels of noise, due to the presence of noisy machines used for crushing and classifying stones, other than due to the massive movement of trucks and loaders [1]. These noises can represent other than a risk for workers [2], [3], also an environmental problem in those cases in which the plant is not far from urban centers [4], [5]. Solutions as encapsulation with sound-absorbing panels, can sometimes provide good results especially for fixed machines [6], but unfortunately, they are not always easy to apply, depending on the configuration of the plant and the spaces needed for their proper function and inspection.…”