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Abstract
The aim of the investigation was to elucidate to what extent noise induced hearing loss in Norwegian merchant ship's engine personnel is caused by exposure to noise from diesel engines. The majority of 65 men examined had been exposed to workshop noise and diesel engine noise, some also to other kinds of noise harmful to hearing. Ten ears in seven men had to be discarded. Three had conductive hearing loss, seven sensori-neural hearing loss of non-occupational causes.
Hearing loss in the remaining 120 ears distributed in 62 men must have been caused by workshop noise, diesel engineroom noise, or both.
Hearing loss induced by workshop noise could be shown to increase with increasing intensity of the noise and duration of employment, as is generally known.
By calculation of the hearing loss risk incurred during workshop employment by the group exposed to both kinds of noise it could be shown that the hearing loss induced by diesel engine-room noise must be faint. Examination of a small group exposed to diesel engineroom noise only supports this assumption.
The main cause of hearing loss from diesel engineroom noise seems to have been impact noise from safety valves or produced when indicating diagrams are made.
Technical noise abatement procedures may presumably eliminate hearing loss risk produced by the steady state noise in merchant ship's diesel engineroom. Engineroom crews must, however, protect their ears against impact noise from safety valves or produced when indicating diagrams are made.