Evaluation of mechanical response of human palm to small impact force

Abstract

AbstractA method of measuring the mechanical characteristics of the human palm for a small impact force is proposed. In the field of bioengineering, accurate quantitative analysis of the mechanical characteristics of the human body is required. In this paper, the mechanical characteristics of the human palm for a small impact force are determined by means of the Levitation Mass Method (LMM). The LMM is a method for accurately measuring varying forces without the use of force transducers. The mechanical characteristics of the human palm were measured with high accuracy by means of an instrument based on the LMM. In the measurement, the mass, which is the moving part of an aerostatic linear bearing, is made to collide with a human palm under test. During the collision measurement, only the Doppler shift frequency of the laser light reflecting on the mass is measured with high accuracy, using an optical interferometer. The velocity, position, acceleration, and inertial force of the mass are calculated from the measured time‐varying Doppler shift. The mechanical response of the human palm to the small impact load is also characterized from the measured data. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 92(1): 18–23, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10002