Vibration Monitoring
Background
Regular and prolonged exposure to vibration can result in damage to the vascular and nervous systems resulting in disability. Vibration transmitted from tools, equipment and machinery can be transferred to persons using them causing long-term health effects.
The 'Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005' sets out clear limits and action values for both hand-arm and whole-body vibration to help reduce vibration-related industrial injury. It places responsibilities on the employer to control vibration exposure in the workplace within the prescribed limits. A duty to carry out a Hand Arm Vibration (HAV) risk assessment to identify the measures that need to be taken in order to meet the regulations, will sometimes necessitate the requirement to measure the magnitude of vibration that workers are exposed to during their work.
Blue Turtle Ltd are occupational hygiene consultants based in the UK. We can help your business protect its workers from the debilitating effects caused by long-term exposure to vibration and also help you achieve legal compliance with the current legislative requirements. By carrying out a vibration monitoring survey we can measure the amount of vibration received by individual workers either to their hands/arm or to their whole body. Once this is understood, an assessment of the risks to health can be made based on the action and limit values set out in the legislation.
An exposure action value is the exposure level when action specified in the regulations must be taken. An exposure limit value is the maximum permitted exposure to vibration for an individual employee. The regulations require employers to:
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Reduce exposure of harmful levels of vibration to a minimum
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Assess the vibration risk to employees
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Implement measures to reduce exposure
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Provide health surveillance when the risk assessment indicates a risk to health or employees are likely to be exposed to vibration at or above an exposure action value.