Evaluation of Workplace Protection Factors for Some Half-Facepiece Respirators in Welding Workplace

일부 반면형 호흡기 보호구에 대한 용접작업장에서의 Workplace Protection Factors(WPF) 평가

This study was conducted to evaluate workplace protection factors(WPF) for two half-facepiece respirators (HR-1, HR-2) in welding workplace and to provide data on the workplace performance of negative-pressure, half-facepiece respirators against airborne particulate contaminants. The outside iron oxide(Fe2O3) concentration of welding fume for the respirator HR-1 ranged from 0.177 to $12.508mg/m^3$ with a geometric mean of $1.118mg/m^3$ and the HR-2 respirator showed a iron oxide range of 0.500 to $3.494mg/m^3$ with a geometric mean of $1.082mg/m^3$. But the inside oxide concentration of welding fume for the respirator HR-1 ranged from 0.002 to $0.364mg/m^3$ with a geometric mean of $0.019mg/m^3$ and the HR-2 respirator showed a iron oxide range of 0.012 to $0.639mg/m^3$ with a geometric mean of $0.041mg/m^3$. The iron oxide inside concentrations were significantly less than $5mg/m^3$(TLV) for both of respirators. The WPF were ranged from 3 to 3744 with a geometric mean of 60 for HR-1 and range from 2 to 129 a geometric mean of 26 for HR-2. And, in this study, the 5th percentile of the workplace protection factors for half-facepiece aspirators (HR-1, HR-2) were 11.2 and 7.1, respectively. The correlation relationship between the Quantative Fit Factors(QNFT) and the WPF for half-mask negative pressure respirators were 0.099 and 0.460.