Contact cooling and its effects on manual dexterity

In industry, it is common for workers to be exposed to a variety of cold surfaces including machinery parts, walls and tools that have cooled to ambient conditions or are cooled by the production process. Although there is legislation and there are guidelines to protect workers and minimise safety risks in environments where there may be hot surfaces (skin burns; EN 563:1994), this is not the case for environments containing cold surfaces. It was hence decided by the European standardisation organisation CEN that a standard should exist to outline the risks associated with contact with a cold material in terms of skin damages, discomfort and effects on manual dexterity. Data was collected for the development of a cold surfaces standard (European Union project SMT4–CT97–2149). The standard should provide information on the relationship between contact material type, surface temperature and the subsequent risk of pain, frostbite and manual dexterity deficits after prolonged exposure. Further research related to this standard was performed and is described in this thesis. [Continues.]