engleski

Evaluation and comparison of forest machinery operators’ cardiovascular workload

: Due to fast developing technologies and production process the occupational safety and health in forestry significantly changed through time. From the aspect of energy workload, old ergonomic paradigm “less is better” for traditional forest technologies is now replaced by a new paradigm “more can be better” because reduced physical activity in modern technologies can have harmful impacts on workers’ health. Accordingly, in this paper an evaluation and comparison of cardiovascular workload for three forest machinery operators (chainsaw, harvester and forwarder) has been made from an ergonomic point of view by using the heart rate method. In the conducted research Garmin Fenix 3HR device has been used to measure the heart rate frequency of selected machinery operators. Field measurements and data collection were conducted during the summer of 2017 while applying different harvesting technologies in the same forest stand. During the measurement, apart from heart rate frequency, the shares of effective and additional (rest, stoppage, physiological need etc.) worktime were also monitored. The energy workload of workers when operating the mentioned forest machinery was taken as a relevant comparison factor. The results obtained for average heart rate at effective, but also at additional time, show significant difference between motor-manual and machine work in wood harvesting process. Also, the average recorded heart rate during the additional time is noticeably higher in machine work (harvester and forwarder) than in motor- manual operation. For the improvement of ergonomic conditions in forest machinery operating, discussion and conclusion part of the paper provide examples of good practice and guidelines for further research needs.

forestry, workload, heart rate, forest machinery operator, Croatia

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