title: Measurement of effective noise exposure of workers wearing ear-muffs.
abstract: This paper presents the methodology and the results of binaural measurements of exposure to noise for 91 industry workers wearing ear-muffs. The results revealed that 18.7% of the workers were exposed to noise of equivalent A-weighted sound pressure levels of over 80 dB(A) and 7.7% to levels of over 85 dB(A). The measured levels were compared with those calculated with the octave-band method according to Standard No. EN 458:2004. The differences ranged from -3 dB(A) to 26.5 dB(A); their statistical distribution did not indicate any data which could suggest derating laboratory measurements. The main causes of exposure to noise higher by over 3 dB(A) than that theoretically predicted were the bad technical condition of ear-muffs (32.2% of the cases) and an incorrect way of wearing them (15.2%).
authors.affiliation: Institute of Radioelectronics, Warsaw University of Technology, Warszawa, Poland. Ewa.Kotarbinska@ire.pw.edu.pl
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kotarbińska
authors.forename: Emil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kozłowski
mesh_terms: D004430:Ear Protective Devices / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D009623:Noise, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016272:Occupational Health; D010349:Patient Compliance