Company & Application 

 Balfour Beatty has hangers based in Bottesford, Leicestershire. The Bottesford maintenance hangars are used daily to store and maintain groundwork equipment, such as core drills, an environment at risk of excess dust exposure. 

This equipment often returns from hire covered in various aggregate compounds, such as concrete, and needs to go through a rigorous cleaning process where much of the aggregate material is broken off before the equipment is thoroughly washed and cleaned. 

The Challenge 

These processes elevate the potential risk of Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS) exposure to people operating within the hangars where the equipment is being stored, moved and worked on throughout the day. 

The challenge was to determine the level of risk, if any, to individuals working with the groundwork’s equipment throughout the day, as well as the risk to anyone visiting the hangars. Balfour Beatty also wanted to increase awareness of the dangers of RCS and protect the workforce from hazardous airborne particulates.  

As highlighted by the HSE, elevated levels of RCS are extremely harmful from an occupational health viewpoint, making it particularly important to understand the risks in the working environment and to individual health. 

The AIR XS Plan 

Sunbelt Rentals recorded the RCS levels over a three-week period from 13 – 29 March 2023, identifying and monitoring exposure to workers within the hangars. This solution was supplemented with additional personal dust monitors to ensure a comprehensive data set was collected. 

The Trolex AIR XS uses light refraction properties unique to RCS to determine size, shape and quantity of particulates in real-time and provide a live on-screen value for airborne silica. Key features of the Trolex AIR XS include: 

• On-device display of RCS measurement in mg/m³ or total particles counted per litre of air sampled. Rolling averaging periods based on 15-minute, 1, 4, 8 and 12-hour patterns. 

• On device warnings and alarms based on custom trigger thresholds. 

• Data logging for download and post analysis using the free Trolex BreatheXS software. 

• Reports are easily accessible through the bespoke software allowing the team to take decisive action to keep people safe. 

The AIR XS Solution 

The data collected by the Trolex AIR XS over the three-week trial, showed that exposure to RCS was high throughout the working day due to local activity. With the average exposure level at 0.3 mg/m³, this was three times the recommended level of 0.1 mg/m³ recorded from the HSE. The personal dust monitors also recorded higher than recommended levels, although this was not for prolonged periods of time. 

Whilst it is a site requirement that all workers wear and use the correct RPE, the trial also monitored exposure to visitors outside of the direct operational areas, where there are not the same RPE requirements. 

Analysis of the data gathered from the AIR XS during the trial clearly shows that there is a significant risk of RCS exposure in the work areas, and adjoining areas of the hangars, with the personal dust monitor also supporting these findings. RCS levels remained above the 0.1mg limit for much of every 24- hour period, with not one period average falling below the limit over the monitoring period.  

Overall, the trial was successful in alerting the site to the risk that RCS presents within the hangars, and equipped Balfour Beatty with the data and knowledge that enabled them to implement a number of effective preventative strategies, providing a safer working environment for individuals on site. 

It’s a clear and simple presentation of responding to the facts. That’s why Trolex and AES are working to provide further support to Australia’s mining, tunnelling, quarrying and construction industries, where workers are at risk of exposure to dangerous dust. 

The AIR X Solution 

This common goal of providing and expert knowledge and specialist equipment to industry is the drive needed to inevitably reduce instances of occupational lung diseases to save lives. This collaboration does exactly that. 

The approach taken by businesses within these industries must now change. With new legislation on exposure to harmful dust in Australia, new dust monitoring methods are needing to be implemented. 

By using Trolex’s advanced dust monitoring technologies, small changes can have a huge impact. As the war on silica dust grows ever stronger by the day, more needs to be done. 

With strict exposure limits coming into effect across Australia, particularly hard on respirable crystalline silica (RCS), real-time monitoring for silica dust is important, retaining live data and providing an instant alarm the legislated threshold is breached. 

Whilst the ability to retrospectively assess levels of silica dust in facilities is available to industries where deadly silica dust is prevalent, the ability to monitor for silica dust in real time is not. 

What this means moving forward 

Aleks also commented on Trolex’s real-time silica monitor, AIR XS, which allows for accurate and reliable monitoring of hazardous RCS in workplace environments: 

“We are really excited to be a part of this project to be able to detect silica in real time, and we’re proud to be distributing it throughout Australia. The project was produced with the support of the Centre for Work Health and Safety in NSW proving just how important and potentially life-saving the new technology will be.” 

And with the talk of real-time, wearable silica monitoring devices a possibility in the future, of course it makes perfect sense for all industries to be increasingly focused on detection possibilities. 

Together, Trolex and AES are providing real solutions for real problems in Australia. 

If you’d like to speak to one of our experts about integrating real-time dust monitoring technology into your working environment, then you can use the contact form below to get in touch with one of our experts today. 

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH  

Working with distributors and partners overseas is how we gain exclusive access to the businesses that need our products to save the lives of their employees. 

We value our close partners as much as our own employees and have good relationships that last way beyond the business transaction. 

This includes trusting our partners to demonstrate our new technology to their customers, in mutual understanding, so our partners and their customers can get ‘up close and personal’ to our XD ONE Portable Dust Monitor and can try it out for themselves in a real-life environment. 

WORKING IN BENELUX 

Our Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg distributor, BASystemen, ordered six  XD ONE demo units to give to their customers to trial.  They landed a few days ago, and their directors are already behind our campaign to get these monitors into the hands of every worker who needs one, and to start saving lives straight away. 

Khoa Nguyen is a keen advocate of field trails, and comments ‘we love feedback!’ He intends to lend them out to his customers so they can ‘try out all functionalities’.