Effectiveness of a new method (TEAT) to assess vibration transmissibility of gloves

Abstract

A test method based upon total effective acceleration transmissibility (TEAT) is proposed to study the vibration isolation performance of anti-vibration gloves. The vibration transmission characteristics of three different gloves are investigated under predominantly axial vibration using the proposed method and the procedure outlined in ISO-10819 (Mechanical Vibration and Shock—Hand–Arm Vibration—Method for the Measurement and Evaluation of the Vibration Transmissibility of Gloves at the Palm of the Hand, International Standard Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1996). The measured data are systematically analyzed to illustrate the measurement and evaluation errors arising from misalignments of the response accelerometer within the palm-held adaptor, unintentional non-axial vibration caused by the vibration exciter and dynamics of the coupled hand–handle system. The degree of adaptor misalignment, estimated from the measured data, was observed to vary from 5.9° to 59.6°. Such variations could cause measurement errors in excess of 20%. The vibration transmission characteristics of selected gloves, evaluated using the proposed method, are compared with those derived from the standardized method to demonstrate the effectiveness of the TEAT approach. From the results, it is concluded that the TEAT method, based upon vector sums of both the source and response accelerations, can effectively account for the majority of the measurement errors, and yield more repeatable and reliable assessments of gloves. Relevance to industry Prolonged exposure to hand-transmitted vibration has been related to the possible occurrence of several health disorders by affecting the bones, joints, muscles and nervous system. The epidemiological studies show that millions of industrial workers are being exposed to hand vibration throughout the world. It is thus vital to develop improved methods for assessment of effectiveness of anti-vibration gloves. The proposed methodology could be applied to assess the effective vibration attenuation performance of anti-vibration gloves, and it could contribute towards developing an improved test method.