Modelling Construction Dust Safety Distance

Construction dust may lead to Silicosis, a disabling respiratory disease which severely threatens the life of construction workers. Therefore, it is important to predict and determine the safety area of dust generated by the construction process and the corresponding protective measures that must be adopted. In this paper, based on real site data, we modelled and simulated the pneumatic drill holes in rock drilling processes to analyze the dust distribution on construction sites. Our simulation results show that the dangerous distance from the pneumatic drill hole is 3.5m. Within the dangerous distance, the dust concentration ranged from 0.039 mg/m3to30mg/m3, and decreased as distance increases. Within the dangerous distance, dust alleviation technologies are strongly recommended and appropriate protective measures must be adopted by construction workers.

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