Knapsack sprayers have been widely used in forestry. However, some equipment may cause different levels of stress for the operators, causing harm to their health. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate ergonomically four knapsack sprayers (thermal sprayer, pneumatic motorized, hand sprayer and electric sprayer), regarding to noise parameters, body vibration level, energy expenditure and physical effort. For noise evaluation, a dosimeter 01dB was used, and the results were compared with the regulatory norm NR-15. For vibration levels, we used a triaxial accelerometer connected to a signal processor Maestro type, and data were compared to the European directives. For caloric expenditure and physical effort, we used a gas metabolic analyzer manufactured by Medgraphics® model VO2000 and a heart monitor from Polar brand. We observed that the hand and electric knapsack sprayers did not present problems related to the noise level. However, the pneumatic motorized knapsack and the thermal sprayer, showed levels above than recommended by regulatory norm NR-15 with levels of 99.97 and 94.33 dB(A), respectively. Similarly, the motorized equipment presented high levels of vibration compared to the other equipments, with global vibration (A8) of 2.09 m s-2 for the thermal sprayer and 2.15 m s-2 for the pneumatic. Regarding to energy expenditure, there were small variations between the kind of equipment used, with expenditure ranging from 3.0 to 3.96 kcal min-1.
Energy expenditure; Vibration; NR-15
