Noise and vibrations intensity inside the cabin of a selfpropelled machine and possible effects on operator's health

This paper presents a research on the noise intensity and vibrations in the cabin of a self-propelled machine with high clearance, Hidromatiks S-PST, designed for specific farming operations in crop growing. Noise inside the cabin was measured at operator's head level. In order to determine the intensity of "whole body vibrations" that the operators are exposed to while using the self-propelled machines, the vibrations were measured at the seat of the machine."Hand-arm vibrations" were measured at the steering wheel and control stick of the machine. The measurings were performed during travelling on different surfaces: asphalted road, dirt road, and furrows. The results of measured noise level indicated that the effective values obtained from the cabin of a self-propelled machine travelling over asphalted surface, dirt road and furrows were below the limit values of exposure to noise set by the Rulebook. The results showed that travelling of a self-propelled machine on asphalted road, dirt road and furrows had "whole body vibrations"and "hand-arm vibrations", i.e. Daily values of exposure to vibrations (A(8) (m/s2 )), far below the Daily limit values of exposure, and even below the Daily action values of exposure set by the Rulebook, for both types of vibrations. Such results obtained from measured level of noise and vibrations imply that the operators using self-propelled machinery Hidromatiks S-PT, are not in risk of damaging their health, which damages can be caused by noise and vibrations.