VIBRATIONS AT THE WORKPLACE – PRACTICAL

CASES OF EVALUATION

Jorge Preto; Clotilde Lages; Luís Conde Santos

dBLab, Laboratório de Acústica e Vibrações, Lda.

luis.conde@absorsor.pt; clotilde.lages@absorsor.pt; jorge.preto@absorsor.pt

Abstract

The European Directive 2002/44/CE, on vibration exposure at the workplace, has been
transposed to the Portuguese Law by DL 46/2006 which aims at promoting the improvement
of working conditions in order to guarantee a higher level of protection of health and safety of
workers. This paper presents practical cases of vibration exposure evaluation at the
workplace, both for WBV (whole body vibration) and for HAV (hand-arm vibration), covering
different types of industries. Results are presented for several types of vibrating equipments,
taken from a wide number of accredited measurements performed by dBLab’s laboratory,
according to ISO 5349-1/2:2001 and NP ISO 2631-1:1997.
Keywords: vibration, hand-arm, whole body, health, exposure.

1 Introduction
Until the publication of the Portuguese ordinance on human vibration exposure at the
workplace, DL46/2006 of 24th February 2006, which transposed the European Directive
2002/44/CE of 25th June 2002, no specific regulations were available in Portugal that could
ensure workers´ protection against vibration exposure risks. This legal publication was an
important milestone because, for the first time, legal requirements were available for this
major source of professional diseases, establishing the need for periodic evaluation of
vibration exposure of workers as well as exposure limits and action values.

Vibration is a harmful physical agent which affects workers and can be found in almost every
activity, particularly in construction and public works, extractive industry, forest exploitation,
foundries and transportation. The effects on workers´ health and safety may include
musculoskeletal, neurological or vascular disturbances, among others.

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The hand-arm vibration (HAV) effects are well known amongst the medical community and
have been studied for a long time. These effects include vascular diseases known as “white
fingers syndrome”, Raynaud´s professional syndrome and traumatic disease of the blood
vessels (vasospastic). The development of this syndrome relies on many factors such as: the
vibration level exposure, the duration of daily exposure, the accumulated duration of the
exposure (in hours, months or years), the workplace temperature and more specifically the
hand temperature, the working procedure and the ergonomics of professional tasks.

Whole-body vibration (WBV) has been less studied than HAV so its effects are less well
known than those of HAV. The only exception is the transmission of vibration through a seat
when the worker is seated, whose effects are quite known in the medical community. As
stated in ISO 2631-1:1997, such effects may lead to an increase in health risk related to the
spinal cord and the nervous system of affected segments. This increase may be caused by
the spine’s biodynamic behaviour: horizontal dislocation and torsion of the spinal segments.
An uncommon mechanical tension and/or nutrition disorder and its transmission to the spinal
disc tissue may lead to a degenerative process in lumbar segments (deforming spondylosis,
intervertebral osteochondrosis, deforming arthrosis). It also worsens some pathological
disorders of the spine. Possible harmful effects on the digestive system, the genital / urinary
system and the female reproductive organs may also occur although they are less
understood. In any case, changes in human health produced by whole-body vibration take
many years to appear.

For more information we recommend the reading of the Good Practice Guides on hand-arm
vibration [3] and on whole body vibration [4].

2 Measurement procedure

2.1 Hand-arm vibration

The measurement and evaluation techniques of human exposure to hand-arm vibration are
described in ISO 5349-1:2001 [5] and ISO 5349-1:2001 [6] international standards. These
measurements are carried according to the coordinate system represented in the figure
below.

(a) (b)
Figure 1– Coordinate system used for hand-arm vibration, in: (a) gripping a cylindrical bar
and (b) contact upon a spherical surface [1].

Measurements are carried with a vibration analyzer which can measure weighted
acceleration in each direction x, y, z (ahwi) and the global value of effective values of weighted
acceleration in frequency (ahv), determined according to orthogonal coordinates and given by
the following expression:

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a hv = a hWx
2
+ a hWy
2
+ a hWz
2

(1)

Commonly, the measurement is done taking into account the different situations of exposure
of the worker and both of his hands, selecting in the end the result of the hand with the
highest value. The daily exposure to vibration is expressed in terms of the global value of
equivalent continuous vibration, frequency-weighted, for an 8 hour period, A(8). It is
calculated according to the following expression, using a value of 8 hours for the reference
period T0 and an exposure period Ti for the duration of each task i:

(2)
Where:
ahvi – global value of vibration for the ith task;
n – number of partial exposure to vibration periods;
Ti – duration of ith task
T0 – reference period of 8 hour

2.2 Whole-body vibration

The measurement and evaluation techniques of human exposure to whole-body vibration are
described in ISO 2631-1:2007 [7] international standard. The determination of whole-body
vibration exposure level is based on the calculation of personal daily exposure for an 8 hour
period, defined as a continuous equivalent acceleration. These calculations are performed
according to the coordinate system represented in the figure below.

Figure 2– Coordinate system used for whole-body vibration: seated, standing and recumbent
positions.

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The effective weighted acceleration is determined for each axis x, y and z allowing to
calculate the vibration level based on the highest effective value of frequency-weighted
acceleration, measured according to the three orthogonal axis. In this case and taking into
account different human body responses to horizontal and vertical vibration, particularly the
seated position with vibration transmitted through the seat, the frequency weight for x and y
axis (Wd filter and multiplying factor k=1.4) is different from the one applied to z axis (Wk filter
and multiplying factor k=1).

The daily exposure to vibration, A(8), is presented in meters per square second and
calculated using the following expression:

Where:

awi – vibration amplitude for an exposure with a duration Ti

n – number of partial vibration exposure periods
T0 – duration of the reference period of 8 hours (28800 seconds)

The vibration transmitted to the body is measured between the body and the contact surface.
The vibration transducer is triaxial and must be located in a way that shows the vibration in
the interface between the body and the vibration source.

3 Practical cases of evaluation

Within its scope of activity as an accredited laboratory for the evaluation of human exposure
to hand-arm and whole-body vibration, dBLab has performed a growing number of tests,
related with a natural increase in demand by companies and other organizations whose
workers are exposed to vibration and need to comply to the new regulations. As a
consequence, the number of accumulated tests allows us to summarize some of the results
obtained for several equipments and machines. These results are presented below.

3.1 Evaluation of hand-arm vibration

The equipments and machines presented for the evaluation of hand-arm vibration are quite
usual and a reasonable number of samples are available for them. The following machines
will be analysed: grinders (37 samples), rock drills (18 samples), vibratory rammers (9
samples), geared head drill press (21 samples) and cutting saw (30 samples).

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X X
Z
Y Z

Figure 3– Example of triaxial accelerometer mounting in a grinder: left hand and right hand

Figure 4– Example of hand-arm vibration measurement for the left hand of a worker using a
rock drill

Table 1– Example of vibration measurements for a grinder and a rock drill (small samples
collected from the group of measurements presented in the following tables)

ahwi (RMS. m/s²) ahv ahv

MAX
Workplace Machine / Equipment Hand-arm
Direction m/s² m/s²

x y z

Left 7,15 3,81 4,08 9,07

P1 Grinder 9,07
Right 2,53 3,28 5,86 7,17

Left 14,3 6,14 3,39 16

P2 Rock drill 17,1
Right 15,7 6,07 2,92 17,1

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Table 2– Average, maximum and minimum values and standard deviation for left hand
measurement tests

Left hand (ahwi)

Machine x y z
Standard Standard Standard
Average MAX MIN Average MAX MIN Average MAX MIN
deviation deviation deviation
Grinder 5,3 9,5 1,3 2,5 3,6 7,2 1,0 1,7 4,8 10,9 0,7 2,9
Rock drill 18,7 21,9 14,3 4,0 6,2 7,3 5,2 1,1 4,9 6,2 3,4 1,4
Geared head drill 0,4 0,6 0,2 0,2 0,4 1,3 0,1 0,5 0,9 3,1 0,1 1,1
Vibratory rammer 9,7 16,5 5,8 4,7 5,5 8,6 4,0 2,1 12,7 16,9 9,3 3,2
Cutting saw 1,4 3,2 0,2 1,0 1,1 2,8 0,2 1,0 1,6 4,1 0,2 1,5

Table 3– Average, maximum and minimum values and standard deviation for right hand
measurement tests

Right hand (ahwi)

Machine x y z
Standard Standard Standard
Average MAX MIN Average MAX MIN Average MAX MIN
deviation deviation deviation
Grinder 6,3 14,6 1,7 4,1 4,8 16,3 1,6 3,4 5,8 14,7 1,8 3,3
Rock drill 14,2 21,9 5,0 8,5 5,2 6,1 4,3 0,9 6,8 11,4 2,9 4,3
Geared head drill 0,4 0,6 0,2 0,2 0,4 1,3 0,1 0,5 0,9 3,1 0,1 1,1
Vibratory rammer 9,7 16,5 5,8 4,7 5,5 8,6 4,0 2,1 12,7 16,9 9,3 3,2
Cutting saw 1,3 3,2 0,1 1,0 1,4 4,2 0,2 1,5 1,7 4,5 0,1 1,6

Table 4 – Average, maximum and minimum values and standard deviation for global values

GLOBAL (ahv)
Machine Standard
Average MAX MIN
deviation
Grinder 11,1 23,3 3,9 5,3
Rock drill 20,8 23,4 17,1 3,3
Geared head drill 1,1 3,4 0,3 1,2
Vibratory rammer 17,4 21,2 13,9 3,7
Cutting saw 2,7 6,03 0,33 2,3

The Portuguese law (DL 46/2006) defines an exposure limit value of 5 m/s2 and an exposure
action value of 2,5 m/s2. Using the limit value, the results presented in the above table show
that for average values of ahv of the entire set of samples, a grinder should not be used more
than approximately 100 min a day, whereas a rock drill should not be used more than 30 min
by a single worker in a daily basis. In the same way but using maximum values for the
analysis, the exposure time drops to 20 min approximately for both the grinder and the rock
drill.

While in the first case, it seems reasonable in practice to use a grinder for not more than 100
min in a daily basis, a limitation of 30 min on the daily use of a rock drill will certainly require
special measures such as rotation of workers, alternative working methods and replacement
of old equipments with new ones, selecting low vibration machines certified by the
manufacturer. Some of the machines analyzed in this study have high standard deviation

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values showing that there is a wide range of situations in measurements and machines
available in the market. Maintenance certainly play an important role here too. Education and
information about the use of these equipments is an important measure for operators
combined with the use of special gloves for rock drills, for example. In some cases, a change
in the whole production process is to be considered, that is, avoiding the use of rock drills or
limiting its use, for instance.

3.2 Evaluation of whole-body vibration

For whole-body vibration evaluation, six equipments have been selected: fork-lift truck (306
samples), dumper/truck (33 samples), backhoe loader (51 samples), excavator (24 samples),
wheeled excavator (12 samples) and roller (15 samples).

Figure 5– Example of whole-body vibration measurement in a fork-lift truck

Figure 6– Example of whole-body vibration measurement in an excavator

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Table 5 –Example of results collected from vibration measurements of a fork-lift truck, a

dumper, a backhoe loader and an excavator

aw k.aw
MAX
Machine Axis k.aw
(RMS,
2 (m/s²)
m/s )

x 0,198 0,278
Electric fork-lift truck y 0,181 0,253 0,278
z 0,197 0,197
x 0,69 0,97
Dumper y 0,73 1,02 1,19
z 1,19 1,19

x 1,01 1,41
Backhoe loader y 1,01 1,41 1,92

z 1,92 1,92
x 0,27 0,38
Excavator y 0,42 0,59 0,59
z 0,45 0,45

Table 6 – Average, maximum and minimum values and standard-deviation of global values
2)
k·aw (m/s
Machine
Average MAX MIN Standard deviation
Fork-lift truck 0,69 2,7 0,24 0,40
Dumper/truck 0,67 1,19 0,20 0,24
Backhoe loader 0,95 1,92 0,59 0,29
Excavator 0,42 0,71 0,18 0,16
Roller 0,64 1,18 0,24 0,39
Wheeled-
0,67 0,89 0,19 0,28
excavator

The Portuguese law indicates an exposure limit value of 1,15 m/s2 and an action value of 0,5
m/s2. The results presented in the tables above comply with the exposure limit value, based
on average values of k·aw of all samples considered and also considering an 8-hour daily
working period. Still, we can observe for maximum values (selecting higher values of
vibration among the equipments with higher values of vibration) that the maximum working
period decreases to 7,5 hours for dumpers, 3 hours for backhoe loaders and 1,5 hours for
fork-lift trucks. The other equipments can be used for 8 hours without any restriction.

The values presented in the tables above clearly show major differences among several
samples taken. This can be explained by different types of machines and mostly by different
operating conditions.

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The vibration values measured in fork-lift trucks are very diverse as shown by high standard
deviation. The main reason for this difference is based on pavement conditions as pavement
is obviously needed for vehicle circulation. Rough or discontinuous pavements account for
dramatic increases in vibration exposure values being responsible for high vibration values. It
is important to point out that in many tests the highest measured value of vibration belongs to
the z-axis because the vibration is caused by vehicle rolling on rough and/or discontinuous
surfaces. An effective way of reducing these vibration levels is to build small ramps to soften
pavement discontinuities or change commonly-used paths to avoid vehicles passing
perpendicularly to pavement joints.

The z-axis value also tends to be the highest in dumpers, being reduced by applying a factor
of 1,4 to x and y-axis values. The roughness of roads used by these machines (pathways to
construction yards or quarries) is closely related to these values. The equipments here tested
show no major differences among them toward global vibration values.

Tested backhoe loaders show quite similar values in every 3 axis although results may
depend on the type of operations conducted during measurements and the type of terrain
machines are moving on. Some differences in global vibrations values have also been
observed in different equipments as shown by high standard deviation.

Excavators have the lowest average vibration value of all measured equipments. Even for
the highest vibration value workers are allowed to use equipments for 8 hours a day without
exceeding the limit exposure value. Only in a few cases, the action value is exceeded.

Global vibration values measured in rollers present a great variation as shown by its high
standard deviation. It is known these equipments are mainly used for compaction operations
so vibration values strongly depend on the soil or surface they are compacting. Another
important remark is that older equipments tend to transmit more vibration to the worker than
new ones mainly because they have been in use for a longer time and they have no vibration
reduction devices.

Wheeled excavators have higher vibration values than normal excavators but the number of
samples taken is not enough to make a statistical comparison as only 12 samples have been
collected. Once again, vibration values depend on the type of operation and the way the
machine is handled.

4 Conclusion
The DL 46/2006 transposed the European Directive 2002/44/CE to the Portuguese law and
has been widely used in companies and organisations since then. The aim is to promote
better working conditions and ensure a better level of protection of workers´ health and
safety towards vibration risks.

This paper presented practical cases of vibrations at the workplace both for whole-body and
hand-arm vibration. In each case, several equipments have been analysed. The results
reveal that manually-handled equipments pose serious health risks to its users (e.g. rock
drill). For instance, in average, rock drills should not be used more than half an hour a day.
This is the type of machine that creates an important challenge for companies which use
them and equipment-makers whose main goal is to minimize vibration transmitted to the
worker. In a general way, whole-body vibration machines are less critical than hand-arm

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vibration ones but there are cases to be noted. For example, one of the evaluated fork-lift
trucks could not be used more than 1 hour and a half a day to comply with the exposure limit
value. This situation can be explained by the age of the equipment but mainly by the
pathways it uses.

References

[1] Decreto-Lei n. º 46/2006, of 24th February of 2006. Diário da República, number 40, I-A
series 2006, pages 1531-1538.
[2] Directive 2002/44/CE of the European Parliament and the Council, 25th June 2002.
Official Journal of the European Community of 6.7.2002, pp. L177/13 a L177/19.
[3] Guide to good practice on Hand-Arm Vibration. European Commission Directorate
General Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. 12/06/2006.
[4] Guide to good practice on Whole-Body Vibration. European Commission Directorate
General Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. 12/06/2006.
[5] ISO 5349-1:2001. Mechanical vibration - Measurement and evaluation of human
exposure to hand-transmitted vibration - Part 1: General requirements. International
Organization for Standardization.
[6] ISO 5349-2:2001. Mechanical vibration - Measurement and evaluation of human
exposure to hand-transmitted vibration - Part 2: Practical guidance for measurement at
the workplace. International Organization for Standardization.
[7] ISO 2631-1:1997. Mechanical vibration and shock -- Evaluation of human exposure to
whole-body vibration -- Part 1: General requirements. International Organization for
Standardization

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