• Project number: F 2254
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Completed Project

Description:

Risk assessment is the key element in occupational safety. It is the basis for a systematic, successful safety and health management. In the course of a risk assessment, the hazards and exposures associated with the work are recorded, evaluated and documented. Often this is associated with a measurement of risk factors. In many cases the determination of physical quantities, e.g. the room temperature, is possible with different measurement methods that can lead to different results and their application requires sufficient expertise. Therefore, there is the need to ensure the required measurement accuracy with suitable, practical measurement methods.

The suitability of a procedure for the specific application depends on the applied measuring principle, the measurement method and its implementation into practice as well as other factors such as the required measuring accuracy, the influence of environmental conditions and the expertise of the user.
Within this project, climate and noise measuring instruments for measurements at workplaces were therefore investigated, and support for selection and application was developed.

For temperature measuring instruments whose accuracy specification is outside the accuracy class required in ASR A3.5, reproducibility for operational measurements is not guaranteed. Therefore, it is recommended to use only measuring instruments with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 ° C. For use in practice, a suitable measuring arrangement to determine a representative value must be applied.

During the examination of the moisture meters, in particular in the range of low humidity, high inaccuracies occurred - especially with simple hair hygrometers. During the investigations, measurement inaccuracies of up to 15% were determined (deviation from the reference value).
For the measurement of the relative humidity in the measuring range from 0 to 95%, measuring instruments with an error limit of +/- 5% are reliable. In the case of the simple humidity measuring instruments that were identified with this accuracy specification, the reproducibility was not guaranteed.

In general, sound level meters of the lower price category are suitable for survey measurements of noise. Appropriate use, however, requires expertise and test measurements in order to avoid large measurement errors and to be able to assess the usability and reliability of the measurement data.

In the field of incoherent optical radiation, the common measuring methods were systematically investigated. With practical examples, relevant parameters and suitable measuring methods were worked out for the risk assessment. These are shown in the report "Measurement methods for the evaluation of incoherent optical radiation".