Subjective Assessment of the Vibration Discomfort Produced by Different Hand Held Machines

Abstract

A subjective method of paired comparisons was developed to compare the discomfort caused by the vibration from hand-held power tools with the predictions obtained using the procedures recommended by standards for the evaluation of human exposure to hand-transmitted vibration. Fiteen trained subjects were exposed in the laboratory to seven different vibration exposures produced by five hand-held tools (one of the tools was used in two positions) and an electrodynamic vibrator. The good agreement observed between and within subjects shows that they can reliably rank vibration dicomfort produced by different hand-held tools. For five vibration exposures out of seven, the rank deduced from the subjective assessments was in accord with the rank of the predicted evaluations derived from the frequency-weighted acceleration values measured. An exposure with highly impulsive vibration was rated as being much more annoying than it was foreseen by the current procedures of evaluation. The operator's position proved to be an important factor in the perception of the discomfort.