Thermal Work Limit (TWL) Weather Stations

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To contact Environdata Weather Stations about Thermal Work Limit (TWL) Weather Stations use Get a quote.

Our heat stress weather stations have alert functions and robust Australian Made reliability, built to survive Australia’s harsh conditions and to keep your workers safe and productive.

Features

• Accurate heat stress weather station
• Protects staff in hot working conditions
• Maintains productivity in hot working conditions
• Tested throughout Australia & Middle East
• Accounts for the accumulative effects of sun, wind, temperature & humidity
• Default values for clothing, posture & sweat rate, or factory set to your specific needs

Applications

• OH & S heat stress management & alerts
• Manage productivity & morale in thermally stressful working environments

TWL Summary

Heat stress occurs when the body’s metabolic heat production exceeds the individual’s ability to dissipate the heat produced. Heat is dissipated by evaporative cooling from the skin, enhanced by sweating.  In humid conditions the efficiency of sweat evaporating and providing cooling from the skin decreases. In windy conditions the evaporative cooling efficiency increases. In sunny conditions, the solar radiation absorbed by the skin means a human absorbs more heat, which then needs to be dissipated as well as the metabolic heat generated by work.

As the principal factor driving metabolic heat production is muscular activity, those working in hot conditions are at greatest risk. For any set of weather conditions, there is a maximum rate at which an individual can dissipate heat i.e. a limiting metabolic rate, and therefore a maximum rate at which they can safely work.

Many industries, particularly in the military, resource or construction sectors, have workers exposed to thermally stressful work environments. These workers need to be protected from heat stress, but without unnecessarily compromising productivity.  Many current measures of heat stress are very conservative in many sets of conditions, as they are too simplistic.  This leads to standing workers down when they are safe to continue working with no risk of heat stress.

In research conducted throughout Australia and the Middle East by a research team from Curtin University (Western Australia), Thermal Work Limit (TWL) has been developed to indicate the limiting metabolic rate a worker can sustain given the environmental factors to which they are exposed.

Environdata can now incorporate TWL into our weather stations, the TWL30 firmware option, to provide an accurate, reliable and robust Heat Stress Weather Station to determine TWL and prevent heat stress.

These TWL weather stations give OH&S professionals and line management the means to implement safe working limits based on weather conditions at any given moment. With the added knowledge that the workers on site are protected by a reliable weather station to alert them based on weather conditions relevant to them, worker morale and productivity can improve.

TWL has been shown to be more appropriate than the traditional Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) as a predictor of heat stress. WBGT can also be provided as a standard output from our weather stations, so both measures can be used and compared in heat stress management.

Sensors Used

• Air Temperature (Ambient)
• Relative Humidity (Ambient)
• Wind Speed (2m)
• Radiant Heat (Black Globe Temperature)
• Barometric Pressure (Optional)

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To contact Environdata Weather Stations about Thermal Work Limit (TWL) Weather Stations use Get a quote.