1 - A Biomechanical Model To Predict Hand-Arm Vibration When Using
1 - A Biomechanical Model To Predict Hand-Arm Vibration When Using
1 - A Biomechanical Model To Predict Hand-Arm Vibration When Using
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Occupational exposure to the hand-transmitted vibration causes health problems and difficulties in the
Available online 9 December 2021 operators of hand-held power tools. This results in the reduction of manpower and increased costs in
terms of compensations remunerated to the affected workers. A principal means to control hand-arm
Keywords: vibration is the use of vibration damping gloves. The primary focus of the current study is to develop
Biomechanical modelling biomechanical model of the human bent hand-arm system to predict vibration transmissibility when
Hand Arm System using different vibration damping gloves. The transmissibility plot was obtained by solving the equations
Vibration Transmissibility
of motion of the biomechanical model considering mass, stiffness and damping coefficient of the gloves.
Vibration Damping Gloves
The transmissibility plot obtained from the model indicated that there was no significant reduction in fin-
ger vibrations at excitation frequencies less than 100 Hz, even if anti-vibration gloves are used. However,
the gloves could appreciably reduce finger vibrations at higher frequencies. The observed response from
the model was in agreement with the experimental studies reported in the prior literature suggesting the
acceptability of the model for analysing vibration transmissibility characteristics of the human hand-arm
system. The model can thus be used to evaluate engineering methods for vibration exposure control dur-
ing operation of hand-held vibrating tools.
Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Con-
ference on Design and Materials (ICDM)-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.11.239
2214-7853/Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Conference on Design and Materials (ICDM)-2021
S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
Nomenclature
workpiece-hand system and analysed it using the lumped param- isolating the vibrations to the human hand-arm system. In the pre-
eter model. It is inferred that mass and the contact stiffness plays sent work, a biomechanical model of bent human hand-arm sys-
significant role in the resonance of the handheld workpiece. tem is formulated to assess the transmissibility and vibration
Dong et al. [8] observed that hand-arm vibrations can be signif- isolation behaviour of different vibration damping gloves. The bent
icantly reduced by the use of anti-vibration gloves. The authors hand-arm system is specifically assessed by taking the most com-
developed a mechanical equivalent model to assess the effective- mon human hand-arm posture while working with different power
ness of anti-vibration gloves in isolating the vibration [9]. A con- tools.
ceptual framework was used to estimate the glove’s effectiveness
in isolating the vibration transmitted to different parts of the
arm. The results showed that the gloves reduced the palm-
transmitted vibrations at frequencies higher than the gloved 2. Formulation of biomechanical model for the bent hand-arm
hand–arm system’s fundamental resonant frequency. It was system
observed that the vibration transmitted through palm was reduced
to some extent at values above resonant frequency of the gloved Human vibration exposure is one of the most serious issues in
hand-arm system but it had no significant effect in isolating the human–machine interface. Depending on the magnitude and dura-
finger vibration. Xueyan S. Xu et al. [10] devised a method for eval- tion of exposure, transmitted vibrations can cause severe and
uating the efficiency of anti-vibration gloves and observed that the sometimes, permanent health disorders such as tenosynovitis, ten-
gloves were able to reduce high-frequency vibration. dinitis and peritendinitis [11,12]. Transmissibility analysis is thus
It could thus be inferred that an extensive amount of work has performed to determine the magnitude of vibrations transmitted
been done to develop the biodynamic models to predict hand arm to various parts of the human body namely fingers, wrist and fore-
vibrations and on the significance of usage of anti-vibration gloves. arm when exposed to a vibration source like hand-held power tool.
The material of the anti-vibration gloves will have a deciding role Such an analysis will not only help in evaluating the hazard poten-
in the extent of reduction of vibration. To the knowledge of the tial of vibration but also in devising suitable control strategies to
authors, so far, no comprehensive model has been reported which reduce its impact. In the present work, the effectiveness of differ-
compare the behaviour of different vibration damping gloves in ent anti-vibration gloves in reducing the hand-transmitted vibra-
Fig. 1. (a) A rendering of an operator holding Earth-drill in bent hand-arm position; (b) Model of the system without gloves.
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S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
Table 1
Parameters of the hand-arm model without gloves.
tions through hand-held power tools is predicted using the trans- while the distance between the mass-center of the upper arm
missibility model of a bent hand-arm system. and shoulder and elbow are denoted by lus and lue whose values
are 11.56 cm and 8.94 cm respectively. The model parameters as
2.1. Modelling of bent Hand-Arm System: reported by Adewusi et al. [6] is shown in Table 1.
The base models for the hand arm system without gloves were 2.2. Transmissibility analysis of the model
adapted from S. Adewusi et al. [6]. The bent arm model developed
is shown in Fig. 1. The hand is represented as a clamp-like struc- The vibrations which are transmitted to different parts of the
ture. The bent arm is represented by a 90° angle at the elbow. Fol- hand arm system subjected to the z-axis displacement from the
lowing is the nomenclature of the terms represented in Fig. 1. tool handle have been predicted from the model. The equation of
The rotational stiffness and damping constant is not considered motion is shown below:
for the wrist in the bent arm position as the hand is needed to
transmit feed and grip forces on tool handle. ½mfz} g þ ½cfz} g þ ½kfzg ¼ ff g ð2Þ
zhh – Z-axis displacement of the tool handle
[m], [c] and [k] in the above equation represents (n n) mass,
zf – Linear displacement of the fingers (mf) along the z-axis
damping and stiffness matrices respectively. {f} is the (n 1) force
zp – Linear displacement of the palm (mp) along the z-axis
vector matrix while {z} is the (n 1) general displacement matrix,
zfa – Linear displacement of the forearm (mfa) along the z-axis
zua – Linear displacement of the upper arm (mua) along the z-
axis
hua – Angular rotation about the mass center for the upper arm
mass (mua)
hb – Angular rotation about the pelvic joint for the trunk mass
(mb)
While the fingers, palm and forearms have translational motion,
the upper arm has general plane motion. The model shown in
Fig. 1. is a 6 degrees of freedom model along the z axis and the
equation of motion corresponding to the model is as follows.
8 9
2 3 z0f0 >
mf 0 0 0 0 0 >> >
> >
> z0 0 >
> >
6 0 7>
7> >
6 0 mp 0 0 0 > p> >
6 7>
> 00 >
>
6 0 0 mfa 0 0 0 7< zfa =
6 7 þ
6 0 0 0 mua 0 7>z >
0 7> 00
6 >
6 7>
> ua >
>
4 0 0 0 0 jua > h0 0 >
0 5>
>
>
>
>
> ua > >
0 0 0 0 0 : 00 >
jb > hp
;
0
c1 þc3 c3 0 0 0 0 zf
0
c3 c1 þc3 þcw cw 0 0 0 zp
0
0 cw cw þce ce ce lue 0 zfa
½ f gþ
0 0 ce ce þcs ce lus ce lue ce h 0
zua
2 2
0 0 ce lue ce lus þce lue cre þcrs þcs lus ce lue crs cs hlus 0
hua
2
0 0 0 ce h crs cs hlus crs þcrb þcs h hb
0
ð1Þ
k1 þk3 k3 0 0 0 0 zf
k3 k1 þk3 þkw kw 0 0 0 zp
0 kw kw þke ke ke lue 0 zfa
½ f g ¼
0 0 ke ke þks ke lus ke lue ke h zua
2 2
0 0 ke lue ke lus þke lue kre þkrs þks lus ke lue krs ks hlus hua
0 0 0 ke h krs ks hlus krs þkrb þks h
2
hb
0
k1 zhh þc1 zhh
0
k2 zhh þc2 zhh
0
f g
0
0
0
In the equations of motion lfe and lfw with values 14.80 cm and Fig. 2. Comparison of the model response with data extracted from the literature
11.20 cm respectively, represent the distances between the mass- [6]: (a) wrist transmissibility plot of bent arm; (b) Forearm transmissibility plot of
center’s of the forearm and elbow and palm joints respectively bent arm.
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S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
where n represents the degrees of freedom of the model (n = 6 for As it could be observed, the model response obtained from the
bent arm). Harmonic displacement excitation is assumed at the present model was in close agreement to that reported in the liter-
tool handle and the displacement is given by zhh = Zhhejxt. The ature. Hence, the proposed model is validated.
equations of motion for the biodynamic model is given as
1 3. Model extension for gloves
fzðjxÞg ¼ ½k x2 ½m þ jx½c ffg ð3Þ
Fig. 3 illustrates the biomechanical model of the bent hand arm
The vibration transmissibility response of the bent arm system
system with the additional vibration damping gloves. The model of
is given by
the gloves and it’s inertial, viscous and elastic properties are taken
zf ðjxÞ zp ðjxÞ zfa ðjxÞ from the report of Dong et al. [8]. The glove masses are represented
Tf ðjxÞ ¼ ; Tp ðjxÞ ¼ ; Tfa ðjxÞ ¼ ð4Þ
zhh ðjxÞ zhh ðjxÞ zhh ðjxÞ as m1, m2, m3 and m4. Masses m1 and m4 represent the mass of the
gloves attached to the finger and palm side while the masses m2
Where Tf, Tp, Tfa are the transmissibility responses of fingers, and m3 represent the masses of the gloves attached to the tool han-
palm and fore arm respectively. zf, zp and zfa represent the z-axis dle on the finger and palm side respectively. The linear stiffness
displacement of the fingers, palm and forearm respectively. and damping constant k4 and c4 represent the visco-elastic proper-
ties of the gloves on the finger side while k5 and c5 represent the
2.3. Validation with literature visco-elastic properties of the gloves on the palm side. The masses
of the gloves attached to the fingers (m1) and the palm (m4) are
The equations of motion were solved using Wolfram Mathe- coupled through linear stiffness k6 and damping constant c6. The
matica software to get the transmissibility plots. The transmissibil- other portion of the glove is characterized by additional masses
ity plots obtained from the model were then compared with the m5 and m6 coupled through linear stiffness k7 and damping con-
transmissibility values available in the literature [6] to validate stant c7.
the equations of motion of the model. The software ORIGIN was The equations of motion of the bent hand-arm system with
used to extract the data points from the literature. Fig. 2 shows gloves is given in equation (5). The bent hand arm system which
the comparision of the wrist and fore-arm response transmissibil- was a 5 degree of freedom becomes a 7 degree of freedom model
ity of the present work and that reported in the work of Adewusi up on the addition of the gloves.
et al.[6].
00
zf
mf þm5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
00
0 mp þm6 0 0 0 0 0 0 zp
00
0 0 mtf þm1 0 0 0 0 0 ztf
00
0 0 0 mtp þm4 0 0 0 0 ztp
½ f 0 0 gþ
0 0 0 0 mfa 0 0 0 z
fa
0 0 0 0 0 mua 0 0 z0 0
ua
0 0 0 0 0 0 jua 0 0 0
hua
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 jb 00
hb
0
zf
c1 þc3 þc7 c3 c7 c1 0 0 0 0 0
0
c3 c7 c2 þc3 þc7 þcw 0 c2 cw 0 0 0 zp
0
c1 0 c1 þc4 þc6 c6 0 0 0 0 ztf
0
0 c2 c6 c2 þc5 þc6 0 0 0 0 ztp
½ f 0 gþ
0 cw 0 0 cw þce ce ce lue 0 zfa
0 0 0 0 ce ce þcs cs lus ce lue cs h 0
2 2
zua
0 0 0 0 ce lue cs lus þce lue cre þcrs þcs lus ce lue crs cs hlus 0
hua
2
0 0 0 0 0 cs h crs cs hlus crs þcrb þcs h 0 ð5Þ
hb
k1 þk3 þk7 k3 k7 k1 0 0 0 0 0 zf
k3 k7 k2 þk3 þk7 þkw 0 k2 kw 0 0 0 zp
k1 0 k1 þk4 þk6 k6 0 0 0 0 ztf
0 k2 k6 k2 þk5 þk6 0 0 0 0 ztp
½ f g ¼
0 kw 0 0 kw þke ke ke lue 0 zfa
0 0 0 0 ke ke þks ks lus ke lue ks h zua
2 2
0 0 0 0 ke lue ks lus þke lue kre þkrs þks lus ke lue krs ks hlus hua
0 0 0 0 0 ks h krs ks hlus krs þkrb þks h
2
hb
0
0
c4 zhh þk4 zhh
0
c5 zhh þk5 zhh
0
f g
0
0
0
0
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S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
unchanged as discussed above and is given in Table 1. Parameter Air Bladder gloves Gel filled gloves
The equations of motions for the model with and without m1 0 0
gloves were analysed to get the transmissibility plots of the fingers, m2 0 0.0005
wrist and forearm (as mentioned in equation (5)). m3 0 0
m4 0.0673 0.0651
m5 0 0
4. Results and discussion m6 0.0107 0.0674
c4 57 75
c5 86 163
The transmissibility plots of the different parts of the hand arm
c6 0 0
system viz; fingers, wrist and forearm are shown in Fig. 4. As the c7 0 1
transmissibility for the fingers without gloves increases at very k4 327,301 454,779
low excitation frequency, it attains a peak at around 12 Hz and k5 177,385 286,537
then decreases. After about 60 Hz, the finger transmissibility again k6 2116 0
k7 923 2417
increases and attains a peak at a frequency of 145 Hz again fol-
lowed by a decrease. The second resonant frequency of the fingers
was estimated from the following equation as reported by Dong
et al. [9]. and attained the second resonant frequency of 57.68 Hz which was
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi again followed by a decrease. The second resonant frequency of the
s
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi palm may be estimated from
k1þk3 9216 þ 6478
f1 ¼ =2p ¼ =2p ¼ 144:64Hz: ð6Þ
mf 0:019
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi
k2þk3þkw
It could be further observed from the Fig. 4(a) that, the addition f2 ¼ =2p
of the gloves did not have any notable effect in the first finger res- mf
s
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
onant frequency. The second resonant frequency of the fingers
41261 þ 6478 þ 13480
increased due to the addition of the gloves and was estimated to ¼ =2p ¼ 57:68Hz ð8Þ
:466
be 148.83 Hz and 155.38 Hz respectively for air bladder and gel-
filled gloves, using the following equation The addition of gloves was found to increase the first resonant
s
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
frequency. Air bladder gloves were found to increase the vibration
k1þk3þk7
=2p: ð7Þ transmissibility more than the gel filled gloves. While, the second
mfþm5 resonant frequency of the palms decreased to 57.46 Hz and
54.97 Hz up on the addition of the gloves as estimated from the fol-
These frequencies were slightly higher compared to bare fingers
lowing equation.
(without gloves). However, at higher frequencies, the transmissi-
bility was found to reduce with the addition of gloves. Effective s
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
reduction in finger vibration was observed at a frequency of ffi
k2þk3þkwþk7
approximately 350 Hz. Air bladder gloves were found better in =2p: ð9Þ
mpþm6
reducing the finger transmissibility at higher frequencies.
The vibration transmissibility characteristics of the wrist The occurrence of second resonance at a frequency lower than
attained the first resonant frequency at 12 Hz and then decreased the estimated second resonance frequency maybe due to effect of
till a frequency of 20 Hz. After 20 Hz, the transmissibility increased damping and the damped frequency being lower than the natural
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S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
5. Conclusions
References
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S. Sabu, K.S.R. Varun Teja, S. Mohan et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 56 (2022) 3527–3533
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