CEN/TR 15172-2:2005

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-julij-2006
Tresenje celotnega telesa – Smernice za zmanjšanje tveganja zaradi vibracij – 2.
del: Organizacijski ukrepi na delovnem mestu
Whole-body vibration - Guidelines for vibration hazards reduction - Part 2: Management
measures at the workplace
Ganzkörper-Schwingungen - Leitfaden zur Verringerung der Gefährdung durch
Schwingungen - Teil 2: Organisatorische Maßnahmen am Arbeitsplatz
Vibrations globales du corps - Guide pour la réduction des risques de vibrations - Partie
2: Mesures de prévention sur le lieu de travail
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TR 15172-2:2005
ICS:
13.160 Vpliv vibracij in udarcev na Vibration and shock with
ljudi respect to human beings
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

TECHNICAL REPORT
CEN/TR 15172-2
RAPPORT TECHNIQUE
TECHNISCHER BERICHT
November 2005
ICS 13.160; 17.160
English Version
Whole-body vibration - Guidelines for vibration hazards
reduction - Part 2: Management measures at the workplace
Vibrations globales du corps - Guide pour la réduction des Ganzkörper-Schwingungen - Leitfaden zur Verringerung der
risques de vibrations - Partie 2: Mesures de prévention sur Gefährdung durch Schwingungen - Teil 2: Organisatorische
le lieu de travail Maßnahmen am Arbeitsplatz
This Technical Report was approved by CEN on 25 July 2005. It has been drawn up by the Technical Committee CEN/TC 231.
CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION
EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG
Management Centre: rue de Stassart, 36  B-1050 Brussels
© 2005 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TR 15172-2:2005: E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

Contents Page
Foreword .3
Introduction.4
1 Scope .5
2 References.5
3 Abbreviations .5
4 Determination and assessment of health risks .6
4.1 General .6
4.2 Identification of main sources of whole-body vibration at the workplace.6
4.3 Relationships between whole-body vibration exposure and health risk.6
4.4 Legal requirements.7
4.5 Use of declared values .7
5 Formulation of provisions aimed at avoiding and reducing vibration exposure .7
6 Minimising vibration exposure .8
6.1 Vibration reduction by task and process re-design .8
6.2 Vibration reduction by selection of machinery, tools and seats.9
6.3 Vibration reduction by instructions and maintenance.13
6.4 Reduction of the exposure duration.14
7 Information related to health risks for the operator .14
Annex A (informative) Examples of machines and processes that may expose operators to
significant whole-body vibration above the exposure action and/or limit values of the EU
Directive 2002/44/EC.16
Annex B (informative) Assessment of health risks from whole-body vibration at the workplace .19
Annex C (informative) A practical example of application of methods for limitation of vibration
exposure.26
Annex D (informative) Selecting mobile machinery for use at work.27
Annex E (informative) Questions to ask of suppliers .31
Annex F (informative) Seating as a means of reducing risks from exposure to whole-body
vibration.32
Annex G (informative) Health surveillance .37
Bibliography.38

Foreword
This Technical Report (CEN/TR 15172-2:2005) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 231
“Mechanical vibration and shock”, the secretariat of which is held by DIN.
CEN/TR 15172 consists of the following parts:
CEN/TR 15172-1, Whole-body vibration — Guidelines for vibration hazards reduction — Part 1: Engineering
methods by design of machinery
CEN/TR 15172-2, Whole-body vibration — Guidelines for vibration hazards reduction — Part 2: Management
measures at the workplace
Introduction
The EU Directive 2002/44/EC on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of
workers to the risks arising from physical agents (vibration) requires those responsible for workplaces to
introduce measures protecting workers from the risks arising from vibration insofar as these affect the health
and safety of workers.
This Technical Report reviews measures of value in the efforts of workplace management to protect workers
from adverse health effects of whole-body vibration and shock. It is recognised that workplaces are very
different and that for a specific workplace only some of the measures are applicable.
Guidelines on engineering methods directed to designers and manufacturers of machinery transmitting
vibration to the human body are given in CEN/TR 15172-1.
1 Scope
This Technical Report outlines practicable measures for the reduction and control of exposure to whole-body
vibration at workplaces in order to provide a practical professional aid to workplace managers and health and
safety officers. It covers identification and reduction of health risks from exposure to hazardous machinery
vibration at the particular workplace, corresponding to Articles 4, 5 and 6 in the EU Directive 2002/44/EC,
including
— identification of main sources of whole-body vibration at the workplace,
— formulation of a strategy for minimising and control of vibration exposure and
— implementation of the strategy.
NOTE Although the term vibration covers continuous vibration and transient vibration (shocks), in this Technical
Report shocks are referred to in special cases where they require special attention.
This Technical Report is not concerned with hand-arm vibration which is covered by CR 1030-2.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this Technical Report. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
EN 14253:2003, Mechanical vibration — Measurement and calculation of occupational exposure to whole-
body vibration with reference to health — Practical guidance
ISO 2631-1:1997, Mechanical vibration and shock — Evaluation of human exposure to whole-body vibration
— Part 1: General requirements
ISO 2631-5, Mechanical vibration and shock — Evaluation of human exposure to whole-body vibration —
Part 5: Method for evaluation of vibration containing multiple shocks
3 Abbreviations
In this Technical Report the following abbreviations are used:
r.m.s. acceleration root-mean-square acceleration and
VDV fourth power vibration dose value, both of which are defined in ISO 2631-1.
S daily equivalent static compression dose, which is defined in ISO 2531-5.
ed
EAV daily exposure action value and
ELV daily exposure limit value, which both are defined in EU Directive 2002/44/EC.
4 Determination and assessment of health risks
4.1 General
General knowledge about whole-body vibration, its effects on man and its assessment and control, is
important as a basis for the determination of health risks at the workplace.
It is necessary to know
 the main sources of whole-body vibration at the workplace,
 the relationships between whole-body vibration exposure and health risk and
 legal requirements including exposure action and limit values.
4.2 Identification of main sources of whole-body vibration at the workplace
The major sources of excessive vibration and shock are usually mobile machinery travelling over rough
surfaces and working with machine tools (loading, drilling, soil compaction, road milling, etc.). A list of the
more common machinery and processes that expose operators to whole-body vibration is given in Annex A.
Furthermore, it is necessary to know representative vibration values for each machine and process that create
the hazard and the corresponding patterns of vibration exposure in order that the exposure of operators can
be estimated.
Of special importance is to search for the following information about the machinery used:
 What are the whole-body vibration exposure values for typical operations of the machine?
 Which operational conditions can be expected to cause whole-body vibration exposures above the
exposure action value and/or above the exposure limit value?
 Which modifications of the machine could cause changes of the declared values?
 Which seats and tools can be considered as suited for the machine, i.e. without worsening the declared
values?
 Which effect will an incorrect adjustment of the seat have on the whole-body vibration exposure?
If an operation handbook does not provide this information, the manufacturer should be asked to provide
additional information.
A thorough knowledge of how the machines are used in practical work is essential. This requires studies at
work sites and collection of information from operators of the machines.
4.3 Relationships between whole-body vibration exposure and health risk
Disorder of the spine and related structures is the main health problem which may be caused by whole-body
vibration. General information on health risks from exposure to whole-body vibration can be found in the
literature.
ISO 2631-1 and ISO 2631-5 provide guidance on health risks from whole-body vibration as well as limits at
which a health risk can be expected. Postures with bending and or twisting of the spine can significantly
increase the health risk at these exposures. Since the strength of the matured spine decreases with age, the
risk of injury due to a particular exposure can essentially increase with age.
There are indications of an exponential rise of the risk with an increasing intensity. Therefore, the integrated
values (e.g. r.m.s. values) will severely underestimate the health risk if daily exposures contain segments with
a high magnitude or transients with high peak acceleration (shocks, bumps). The more sophisticated
procedures described in ISO 2631-5 will be required for an adequate evaluation in such cases. For the same
reason, averaging of r.m.s. values for different days can lead to an underestimation of the health risk. This is
the case if days with significantly different daily exposure values are averaged.
EN 14253 describes how to measure and calculate the daily vibration exposure in various situations. Annex A
of EN 14253:2003 includes calculation of daily exposure for the cases where the daily work consists of long
uninterrupted operations and for the cases where the daily work consists of operations or work cycles with
different vibration magnitudes over short periods.
NOTE Research is continuously going on in various places and it is important for the management to follow the
development and be aware of revisions of the applicable standards.
4.4 Legal requirements
The EU Directive 2002/44/EC includes requirements on vibration exposure values that shall not be exceeded
(limit values) and exposure values above which actions for reduction of the vibration shall be taken (exposure
action values).
The vibration exposures should be determined for a workday that is representative for the most pronounced
vibration conditions. Averaging over workdays should not be made.
It should be noted that the limit values given by the EU Directive 2002/44/EC are not "safe" values. According
to ISO 2631-1:1997, Annex B, a significant health
...