THE USE OF PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS (PCA) IN DETERMINING FACTORS RELATED TO HEAT STRESS RELATED SYMPTOMS AMONG STEEL MILL WORKERS IN HOT TROPICAL COUNTRIES

Imam Munajat Nurhartonosuro1, Shamsul Bahri Md Tamrin1,*, Dayana Hazwani Mohd Suadi Nata2, Karmegam Karuppiah1, Ng Yee Guan1, Gede Pramudya Ananta3

1 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.

2Environmental Health & Industrial Safety Program, Center for Health & Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

3Department of Software Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Johor Malaysia

*Corresponding author: shamsul_bahri@upm.edu.my

Page 1 – 24   |   Vol. 8 No. 1 2023   |    Available online on 30th Jun 2023

Abstract

Abstract: Heat stress related symptoms are commonplace workers experience heat strain due to heat stress occurring at workplaces. Steel mill workplaces have an extremely high operating temperature around 1800oC, thus operators are most likely to be exposed to hot environments. The study aimed to apply principal component analysis (PCA) in predicting the heat stress symptom model among steel mill workers. Data including environmental variables (WBGT, relative humidity, air temperature; related symptoms), physiological changes (blood pressure of systolic and diastolic, heart rate, and body core temperature) at three steel mills located in East Java, Indonesia, where operators might experience were used in PCA. Based on the principal component analysis (PCA) result, there are three variables that have a strong correlation (> 0.5) with factor 1, namely WBGT, relative humidity and body core temperature. The three variables are then grouped into factor 1; Furthermore, the other two variables have a strong correlation with factor 2, namely blood pressure systolic and diastolic. In conclusion, PCA is able to determine the prediction of heat stress symptoms and is simplified to be used by the steel mill industries.

Keywords

predictive model, heat stress related symptoms, steel mills, PCA

© 2022 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFEM). All rights reserved.

Recommended articles

Publish with us

Human Factors & Ergonomics Journal (HFEJ), eISSN: 2590-3705  is the official Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Malaysia.  The journal is published on a biannual basis. HFEJ aims to address current research in the field of Ergonomics in addition to the broad coverage of cognitive ergonomics, user experience, physical ergonomics and others such as transportation, industrial design and industrial engineering. HFEJ is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), as such we only accept original work.