A cross-sectional survey of musculoskeletal disorder hazard exposures and self-reported discomfort among on-shore wind turbine service technicians

Abstract

Background

Servicing and maintaining wind turbines may expose wind turbine technicians (wind techs) to musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) hazards. We aimed to characterise MSD hazard exposures and identify work elements that should be prioritised for MSD prevention efforts.

Methods

A cross-sectional online survey methodology gathered data from 144 wind techs based on a convenience, non-probability sampling approach. The survey was developed using resources from the Ontario MSD Prevention Guideline, where cognitive interviewing yielded wind tech specific modifications.

Results

Climbing was the most physically demanding task, followed by torqueing/tensioning and manual materials handling (MMH). However, working in awkward and constrained postures emerged as the task most likely to cause or aggravate discomfort.

Conclusions

Injecting ergonomic and human factors principles into wind turbine design should be a high priority. Re-engineering tools like torque tensioning devices may reduce MSD hazard exposures associated with tasks including torqueing/tensioning and MMH.

Practitioner Summary

We know little about musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) hazards associated with green jobs. By surveying wind turbine technicians, we learned that MSD hazards exists, and can be addressed by better considering human factors/ergonomics principles in the design of wind turbines and the tools required for service and maintenance operations.

Abbreviations: MSD: musculoskeletal disorder; MMH: manual materials handling; Wind techs: wind turbine technicians; CRE-MSD: centre of research expertise for the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders; CanWEA: Canadiarn wind energy association; HFE: human factors/ergonomics; ASME: American Society of Mechanical Engineers; CSA: Canadian Standards Association

Keywords:

• Green ergonomics
• hazard identification
• proactive ergonomics
• physical ergonomics

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the insight and guidance of Phil McKay, the Program Director – Operations and Maintenance at the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) in facilitating survey design and administration. We also thank Justin Diamond, Haley Price, Kylie Sullivan, Shudarroan Uthayakumar, and Mathew Zouki for their efforts and support in developing the survey and aggregating results. This research was unfunded.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).