Occupational Safety and Health aspects in mechanized full facetunnel driving: the situation of ante 89/392/ECC TBMs

The machines for underground operations in EU countries must nowadays comply with the 2006/42/EC Directive on machinery issued by the European Parliament and the Council, a revised version of the former 89/392/EEC Directive. The Italian enforcement of the 2006/42/EC Directive is the law D.Lgs. 17/2010. With reference to Tunnel Boring Machines - TBMs, an Italian common problem is that nowadays a number of machines produced before the enforcement of the Machinery Directive 89/392/EEC are, given the considerable costs and resulting long payback periods, still in operation in tunnels. In this regard, as anticipated by the 89/391/EEC “Framework” Directive, the 89/655/EEC Directive concerning the minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment by workers at work -last revision in 2009/104/EC- should be applied to grant an acceptable safety level. In Italy the situation is nowadays regulated by the enforcement of the 89/391, the national law D.Lgs. 81/08, specifically in Annex V. This is not valid if the TBM has not been substantially transformed during the years of service. In this case, in fact, the machine must be subject to the EC marking. The paper discusses the risk analysis and management approach which should be applied in this particular situation.