Workplace Exposure to Submicron Particle Mass and Number Concentrations from Manual Arc Welding of Carbon Steel

Details

• Personal Author:
  Seshadri G ; Stephenson D ; Veranth JM
• Description:
  Particle emissions from manual shielded metal arc welding of carbon steel were sampled in a typical industrial maintenance and metal fabrication workplace environment. Particle number measurements over the size range from 14 nm to 10 microm using a scanning mobility particle sizer and an optical particle counter showed that welding produced an approximately lognormal particle mode with a 120 nm count median and a geometric standard deviation of 2.07. This study produced welding particle number concentrations on the order of 2 x 10(5)/cm(3) in the building air 8.5 m away from the welding. Workplace exposure samples were below the current 8-hour American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists mass concentration threshold limit value of 5 mg/m(3). Submicron particles comprised 80% of the total aerosol mass collected by a cascade impactor during welding. The concentration of larger particles was indistinguishable from indoor background. Microscopy showed that the welding emissions are dominated by clusters formed from <0.1 microm primary spheres. These data on the particles resulting from aerosol transformation by natural dilution inside an industrial building can be compared with laboratory-scale studies of welding particulate. The particle number characteristics observed in this study are significant because toxicological hypotheses suggest that number or surface area may be a better metric than mass when evaluating the health effects of fine particles. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Environmental Exposure Hazardous Substances Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Metals Metal Workers Occupational Health Particulate Matter Safety Welding
• Keywords:
  Arc-welders Arc-welding Author Keywords: Electron Microscopy Fabricated-plate-work Industrial-emissions Industrial-exposures Industrial-factory-workers Metal-industry-workers Metal-workers Nanotechnology Occupational Exposure Particle-counters Particle Number Particulates SMAW Steelworkers Threshold-limit-values Toxic-materials

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• ISSN:
  0002-8894
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 8 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  64
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20037543
• Citation:
  Am Ind Hyg Assoc J 2003 Jul/Aug; 64(4):516-521
• Contact Point Address:
  D. Stephenson, University of Utah, Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, 75 South 2000 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-5120
• Email:
  dstephenson@dfpm.utah.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• Performing Organization:
  Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Department of Family & Preventive Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19950701
• Source Full Name:
  American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal
• End Date:
  20020630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:02d7000fdb060ed79072e78bdbeb46c9f79840b0e27a1b8cefde483498bccfde6599098c737f9ca8d4bc302fff68a5c9979f8c820af2c4e37281dc81b0735871
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/188620/cdc_188620_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 397.40 KB ]