Issues in ensuring the minimum safety requirement for in-use manure spreader: overview and preliminary results from the PROMOSIC project

the entanglement of operator because of inadequately shielded moving parts of the machinery (eg. rollers, conveyor belts, power transmission system). In order to guarantee the minimum safety requirements on in-use units, some measures of compliance to the last edition of harmonized safety standard (EN 690:2014) should be taken. Nevertheless, such measures could result difficult to implement or economically unaffordable. The aim of this study was to analyze the most suitable solutions to be adopted on in-use trailed manure spreader and to verify feasibility of such solutions ensuring minimum safety requirements in accordance to the most recent safety standards. Results confirmed that majority of the in-use manure spreaders would not comply with the most recent harmonized standard especially for what concerns protection against the risk of entanglement. Moreover, the study pointed out solutions to achieve required level of safety for operators verifying for some of them the effective technical feasibility and the economic impact.