摘要
The main objectives of this study was measuring levels of noise generated by machinery that workers at metal industrial facilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia （KSA） are exposed to as well as to determine if these levels were in conformity with adopted standards. To achieve the objectives of this study the following six metal industrial facilities were selected： a foundry plant, a building-metal production factory, a cold processing steel manufacturing plant, a hollow-metal door and doorframe manufacturer, a car-exhaust-system factory and a metal-can producer. The study found that workers operating machinery without any kind of protection were exposed to unacceptably high levels of noise that exceeded the internationally acceptable values as per occupational noise exposure-1910.95 regulations adopted standard. It was founded that 73% of work site investigated have noise level over 85 dB. A level of 116 dB was recorded at steel plant fiat section product with continuous occupation and 115.2 dB in metal product factory with labor continuous occupation. Based on the results obtained in this study, it is evident that a competent environmental and health agency needs to be established and that stricter noise-level standards ought to be enforced in order to protect employee health.
