Estimation of the Transmissibility of Anti-Vibration Gloves when Used with Specific Tools

Abstract

Anti-vibration gloves are increasingly being used as personal protective equipment to help reduce the hazards of hand-transmitted vibration. A vibration transfer function method for estimating the tool-specific performance of anti-vibration gloves has been proposed to help select appropriate gloves for particular tools and to assess the potential risks posed by tool vibration. This study evaluates the validity of the method by comparing the predicted vibration transmissibility with the measured value. Two typical vibration-attenuating gloves (air-bladder and visco-elastic material gloves) were used in the study. Two series of experiments were performed for the evaluation. In the first series, the isolation efficiency of selected anti-vibration gloves was evaluated in the laboratory under synthesized handle vibration spectra of six different tools. The second series of tests involved the measurement of the glove transmissibility, while operating two different pneumatic chipping hammers. The results of the study show reasonably good agreements between the predicted and measured acceleration transmissibility values of the candidate gloves. It is thus concluded that the transfer function method provides a reasonably good estimate of vibration attenuation performance of gloves for specific tools.