Influential factors on indoor air dustiness in woodworking companies

In two woodworking enterprises, a furniture factory and a carpentry workshop, the influence of machine working, woodworking material, the quality of air conveyors work and the air in the working environment on dustiness of the working environment has been investigated. Dustiness of floating wood particles has been determined according to the cutting tool characteristics, kinematics parameters, air conveyors work and the structure and stiffness of woodworking material. It is a well-known fact that carpenters suffer from health risk of nose and nasal cavity cancer caused by oak and beech wood dust. In line with this Croatian regulations recommend limiting values of up to1 mg/m3 for hardwood dust mass concentration of respirable particles. By using a measuring method of individual samplers fixed on the worker’s clothes and by the samples collected during working hours, a daily dose of the worker’s exposure was determined. The mass concentration of respirable particles near the band sander in the furniture factory was higher than near the circular saw. Both woodworking machines created much more dust than other machines, such as a milling machine, band saw or planer. In the carpentry workshop mass concentration of respirable particles near the circular saw was higher than near the planer or lamelo milling. The planer made less total wood dust than all other machines in both enterprises. It has been shown that the influence of woodworking material related parameters is important but not as much as the influence of working machines related parameters. In the furniture factory when sawing fibreboard by using a circular saw, the mass concentration of respirable wood dust particles was higher than when sawing particleboards. In the carpentry workshop when sawing particleboards and beech-wood (by using a circular saw), the mass of respirable and total wood dust was approximately the same. The machine working related parameters significantly influence the mass concentration of respirable particles within the working environment while the air conveyors work quality influences the amount of total wood dustiness.