Acoustic assessment of pneumatic and electric jackleg drills used in the mining industry.

Hearing loss is the most prevalent disease among miners. A study of U.S. western hard‐rock mines revealed that 96% of machine operators were overexposed to noise, with jackleg drill operators having the most rapid noise dose accumulation. Traditionally, jackleg drills have been driven by pneumatic power. However, there are currently available rotary hammer drills powered by electricity. This paper presents an acoustic assessment of pneumatic and electric jackleg drills that involved noise source identification (NSID), penetration rate and operator’s cumulative noise dose measurements, and determination of sound power levels. NSID using microphone phased array technology revealed two dominant noise sources for the electric drill, one located at the drill and one located at the drill steel‐rock interaction place. In contrast, NSID for the pneumatic drill showed only one dominant noise source located at the drill. Penetration rate and noise dose measurements were combined to estimate the accumulated dose and...