TY - CONF
T1 - Occupational illness due to physiological strains and ergonomic problems in manual sugar beet harvesting
T2 - 10th Conference of the Italian Society of Agricultural Engineering, Horizons in agricultural, forestry and biosystems engineering
AU - Callea, P.
AU - Zimbalatti, G.
AU - Quendler, E.
AU - Nimmerichter, A.
AU - Bachl, N.
AU - Bernardi, B.
AU - Benalia, S.
AU - Proto, A.R.
A2 - Monarca, D.
A2 - Cecchini, M.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The aim of this pilot study was to determine physiological strain problems in manual sugar beet harvesting in countries characterized by a low level of mechanization. This practice has always been one of the most labour-intensive activities in which workers usually become fatigued in a few hours. Experimental trials achieved in the experimen- tal farm of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Groß Enzersdorf, Lower Austria, considered a group of three men whose anthropometric characteristics varied in age from 23 to 46 years, in body weight from 72±2 kg, in height 1.78±0.05 m, while body fat was of 22.72±2 kg/m2, for a fifty-minute simulations of manual sugar beets harvesting, over a roughly 8 to 10 hours per day. The exper- imentation was designed to identify the systematic postures and oxy- gen uptake related to this activity. Laborers’ subjective feeling was assessed achieving a qualitative interview, while oxygen consumption and heart beat frequency were measured by a portable metabolimeter (K4b2) to determine the physiological strain of dynamic work accord- ing to UNI EN ISO 8996, moreover, an evaluation of postures was obtained using the OWAS method, NIOSH code and force evaluation by mean of Apalys 4.0 software. The qualitative interview demonstrated that each operator suffered neck and dorsal pain and fatigue while sugar beet harvesting. The pointed out results were a VO2 of 200 ±7.9 l O2 /h, a VCO2 of 176±10 l CO2/h, a heart rate of 141±7.6 b/min with a maximum value of 190±9.1 b/min. The energetic equivalent and body surface area were respectively of 5.7 W h/lO2 and 1.90 m2 on average. The average operators’ metabolic rate was very high, 600 W/m2 show- ing that manual sugar beet harvesting tasks were energy intensive. This activity appertained to class three and four according to OWAS. The force output for each task at L5/C1 was 2633.33 N for fork insertion into the soil, 2900 N for sugar beet removal from the soil, and 2600 N for lifting the vegetable to the gathering place. NIOSH indexes for the same tasks were respectively 1.40, 1.43, 1.39.
AB - The aim of this pilot study was to determine physiological strain problems in manual sugar beet harvesting in countries characterized by a low level of mechanization. This practice has always been one of the most labour-intensive activities in which workers usually become fatigued in a few hours. Experimental trials achieved in the experimen- tal farm of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Groß Enzersdorf, Lower Austria, considered a group of three men whose anthropometric characteristics varied in age from 23 to 46 years, in body weight from 72±2 kg, in height 1.78±0.05 m, while body fat was of 22.72±2 kg/m2, for a fifty-minute simulations of manual sugar beets harvesting, over a roughly 8 to 10 hours per day. The exper- imentation was designed to identify the systematic postures and oxy- gen uptake related to this activity. Laborers’ subjective feeling was assessed achieving a qualitative interview, while oxygen consumption and heart beat frequency were measured by a portable metabolimeter (K4b2) to determine the physiological strain of dynamic work accord- ing to UNI EN ISO 8996, moreover, an evaluation of postures was obtained using the OWAS method, NIOSH code and force evaluation by mean of Apalys 4.0 software. The qualitative interview demonstrated that each operator suffered neck and dorsal pain and fatigue while sugar beet harvesting. The pointed out results were a VO2 of 200 ±7.9 l O2 /h, a VCO2 of 176±10 l CO2/h, a heart rate of 141±7.6 b/min with a maximum value of 190±9.1 b/min. The energetic equivalent and body surface area were respectively of 5.7 W h/lO2 and 1.90 m2 on average. The average operators’ metabolic rate was very high, 600 W/m2 show- ing that manual sugar beet harvesting tasks were energy intensive. This activity appertained to class three and four according to OWAS. The force output for each task at L5/C1 was 2633.33 N for fork insertion into the soil, 2900 N for sugar beet removal from the soil, and 2600 N for lifting the vegetable to the gathering place. NIOSH indexes for the same tasks were respectively 1.40, 1.43, 1.39.
M3 - Papier
ER -