Respirable crystalline silica exposures during asphalt pavement milling at eleven highway construction sites

Details

• Personal Author:
  Echt, Alan S. ; Hammond, Duane R. ; Shulman, Stanley A.
• Description:
  Asphalt pavement milling machines use a rotating cutter drum to remove the deteriorated road surface for recycling. The removal of the road surface has the potential to release respirable crystalline silica, to which workers can be exposed. This paper describes an evaluation of respirable crystalline silica exposures to the operator and ground worker from two different half-lane and larger asphalt pavement milling machines that had ventilation dust controls and water-sprays designed and installed by the manufacturers. Manufacturer A completed milling for eleven days at four highway construction sites in Wisconsin, and Manufacturer B completed milling for ten days at seven highway construction sites in Indiana. To evaluate the dust controls, full-shift personal breathing zone air samples were collected from an operator and ground worker during the course of normal employee work activities of asphalt pavement milling at eleven different sites. Forty-two personal breathing zone air samples were collected over 21 days (sampling on an operator and ground worker each day). All samples were below 50 microg/m3 for respirable crystalline silica, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended exposure limit. The geometric mean personal breathing zone air sample was 6.2 microg/m3 for the operator and 6.1 microg/m3 for the ground worker for the Manufacturer A milling machine. The geometric mean personal breathing zone air sample was 4.2 microg/m3 for the operator and 9.0 microg/m3 for the ground worker for the Manufacturer B milling machine. In addition, upper 95% confidence limits for the mean exposure for each occupation were well below 50 microg/m3 for both studies. The silica content in the bulk asphalt material being milled ranged from 7% to 23% silica for roads milled by Manufacturer A and from 5% to 12% silica for roads milled by Manufacturer B. The results indicate that engineering controls consisting of ventilation controls in combination with water-sprays are capable of controlling occupational exposures to respirable crystalline silica generated by asphalt pavement milling machines on highway construction sites. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Construction Industry Construction Materials Dust Engineering Environmental Exposure Environmental Monitoring Hydrocarbons Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Safety Silicon Dioxide Ventilation Workplace

  More +
• Keywords:
  Air-quality-measurement Air-sampling Asphalt-cements Asphalt-concretes Asphalt-fumes Author Keywords: Cold Planers Breathing-zone Construction Construction-equipment Construction-industry Construction-materials Construction-workers Control-technology Dust-control Dust-control-equipment Dust-exposure Dust-suppression Dust Control Employee-exposure Engineering-controls Engineering Controls Environmental-control-equipment Environmental-exposure Equipment-design Equipment-operators Equipment-reliability Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure-limits Machine-operation Machine-operators Occupational-exposure Outdoors Recycled Asphalt Pavement Respirable-dust Road-construction Road-surfacing Silica-dusts Ventilation-equipment Work-environment

  More +
• ISSN:
  1545-9624
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  13
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047572
• Citation:
  J Occup Environ Hyg 2016 Jul; 13(7):538-548
• Contact Point Address:
  Duane R. Hammond, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1090 Tusculum Avenue, Mail Stop R-5, Cincinnati, OH 45226
• Email:
  dhammond@cdc.gov
• CAS Registry Number:
  Quartz (SiO2) (CAS RN 14808-60-7) ; Silica (CAS RN 7631-86-9)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7de0213f5c5d42800d3efd7ccb1d031310d86f8a73a8cb93b8a95f351ea08577e617cf746de0fb5886f51ef6906d2366ae9e4ad566f6aa6c965b79e4b7641f78
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202589/cdc_202589_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 653.31 KB ]