SAFETY MONITORING
Making sense of noise
Jonathan Newell finds out how embedded sensors are helping prevent workers from suffering noise induced hearing loss
I
n an effort to combat noise induced hearing loss (NIHL), often referred to as the hidden industrial injury,Honeywell Industrial Safety has introduced embedded sensors within its personal protective equipment (PPE) range to
monitor the sound levels workers are exposed to over a period of time and not just transient spikes of noise. With this technological enhancement to passive
safety products, the company is bringing an active component to play as ameans of preventing hearing degradation bymonitoring trends and taking measures to provide further protection. Honeywell has also launched an awareness
campaign to help employers ensure industrial workers receive effective hearing protection and training in the workplace and avoid the life- changing consequences of hearing damage.
TACKLING THE HIDDEN INJURY According to a 2015 report fromtheWHO (World Health Organisation), NIHL is themost commonly reported work-related injury globally; in the UK alone around 17,000 people suffer fromsome degrees of deafness, ringing in the ears or other ear conditions caused by excessive noise at work. Despite being “hidden”, NIHL is permanent,
irreparable and irreversible and theWHO takes it very seriously, defining tinnitus as the thirdmost serious non-deadlymedical condition for humans. According toHoneywell Industrial Safety’s EMEA
Hearing ConservationManager, Kjersti Rutlin, the use of effective noise exposuremonitoring strategies in the workplace could have preventedmost of these
injuries. She believes that the best levels of hearing protection for industrial workers can only really be provided if the real noise levels that they’re exposed to over time are known and understood.
MEASURING NOISE EXPOSURE One of the problems ofmonitoring noise exposure is the way regulations specify average noise levels in the environment, rather than actual exposure measured at the point of “impact”. The Control of Noise atWork Regulations 2005mandates that employers provide a worker with hearing protection if their daily or weekly average exposure exceeds 85dB. However, according to Rutlin, this isn’t enough to
safeguard the workforce’s hearing effectively. Noise exposure levels can vary significantly throughout the day and fromone location to another within an industrial environment so there is an element of guesswork in knowing whether the 85dB threshold is exceeded. Tomeasure sound levels in selected locations is a
traditionalmethod of determining whether workers need to be supplied with hearing protection and sound levelmeters have been found to be useful in measuring sound pressure levels in specific locations.However, these devices don’t account for any variations in these levels, which can vary significantly depending on the location chosen for metering.
MEASURING NOISE DOSE IN THE EAR An alternative to open spacemetering is the use of noise dosimeters, such as the Quietpro QP100Ex
April 2017 /// Environmental Engineering /// 15
The consequences of Noise Induced Hearing Loss can be life-changing
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