Abstract
The vibration load of a hand-held machine depends on many factors not defined in the ISO 5349:2001 standard about the measurements and evaluation of human exposure to hand-transmitted vibration. In this study, the effect of different operation modes on the vibration emission of a brush cutter was investigated. The frequency weighted r.m.s. acceleration was measured at the front (left) and rear (right) handle in three orthogonal directions according to ISO 5349 (2001). Two set of measurements were performed with three subjects foridling and cutting operations. In addition, the acceleration was measured with two holding positions, i.e. the cutting head is tilted by 45˚ to the left and tilted by 45˚ to the right. The standard vibration evaluation method, with the cutting head parallels to the ground, significantly under-estimated the vibration emission of the tilted tool to the left and right. The results suggest that the use of different holding positions would improve the reliability of the standard method of assessing the vibration of hand-held tools.
Highlights
Extended exposures of the hand and fingers to vibration can result various disorders like finger blanching, numbness at the hand, tingling, reduced muscle activity or bone and joints problems (Griffin, 1990)
The vibration emission of a powered back-pack type brush cutter has been evaluated under different operating conditions
The standard position underestimated the vibration load of the brush cutter measured in tilted position to the right and left
Summary
Extended exposures of the hand and fingers to vibration can result various disorders like finger blanching, numbness at the hand, tingling, reduced muscle activity or bone and joints problems (Griffin, 1990). The source of hand-transmitted vibration is often a hand-held tool that is widely used in gardening or landscape architecture. Vibration induced injuries at the hand-arm system, have been widely studied among forestry workers using chain saws (Sutinen et al, 2006; Färkkilä et al, 1988; Bovenzi, 2008). The operators of hand-held power tools are exposed various levels of hand-arm vibration at the tool-hand interface. The EU Physical Agents Directive on human exposure to vibration published on 22 June 2002, defines ‘‘the minimum health and safety requirements’’ for the exposure of workers to the risks arising from vibration. The Directive sets two limits for hand-transmitted vibration: the exposure action value is 2.5 ms-2 and the exposure limit value is 5.0 ms-2 (Directive 2002/44/EC)
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