Evaluating the effectiveness of gloves in reducing the hazards of hand-transmitted vibration

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Griffin, Michael J.¹

Evaluating the effectiveness of gloves in reducing the hazards of hand-transmitted vibration

Occup Environ Med. May 1998;55(5):340-348

Affiliations

¹Human Factors Research Unit, Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Abstract and keywords

Objectives: A method of evaluating the effectiveness of gloves in reducing the hazards of hand-transmitted vibration is proposed.

Method: The glove isolation effectiveness was calculated from: (a) the measured transmissibility of a glove, (b) the vibration spectrum on the handle of a specific tool (or class of tools), and (c) the frequency weighting indicating the degree to which different frequencies of vibration cause injury. With previously reported tool vibration spectra and glove transmissibilities (from 10–1000 Hz), the method was used to test 10 gloves with 20 different powered tools.

Results: The frequency weighting for hand-transmitted vibration advocated in British standard 6842 (1987) and international standard 5349 (1986) greatly influences the apparent isolation evvectiveness of gloves. With the frequency weighting, the gloves had little effect on the transmission of vibration to the hand from most of the tools. Only for two or three tools (those dominated by high frequency vibration) did any glove provide useful attenuation. Without the frequency weighting, some gloves showed useful attenuation of the vibration on most powered tools.

Conclusions: In view of the uncertain effect of the vibration frequency in the causation of disorders from handtransmitted vibration, it is provisionally suggested that the wearing of a glove by the user of a particular vibratory tool could be encouraged if the glove reduces the transmission of vibration when it is evaluated without the frequency weighting and does not increase the vibration when it is evaluated with the frequency weighting. A current international standard for the measurement and evaluation of the vibration transmitted by gloves can classify a glove as an antivibration glove when it provides no useful attenuation of vibration, whereas a glove providing useful attenuation of vibration on a specific tool can fail the test.

Keywords: vibration; gloves; vibration-induced white finger; standards
Links

DOI: 10.1136/oem.55.5.340

PubMed: 9764112

PubMedCentral: PMC1757587

WoS: 000074242900007
History

Accepted: 1997-10-31

Cited Works (6)

Year	Entry
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1982	Griffin MJ, Macfarlane CR, Norman CD. The transmission of vibration to the hand and the influence of gloves. In: Brammer A., Taylor W, eds. Vibration Effects on the Hand and Arm in Industry. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons; 1982:103-116.
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1986	Mechanical Vibration: Guidelines for the Measurement and the Assessment of Human Exposure to Hand-Transmitted Vibration. ISO Standard ISO 5349. [ISO Standard thesis]. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Standardization; 1986.

Cited By (18)

Year	Entry
2003	Dong RG, Rakheja S, Smutz WP, Schopper AW, Caporali SA. Dynamic characterization of instrumented handle and palm-adapter used for assessment of vibration transmissibility of gloves. J Test Eval. May 2003;31(3):234-246.
2005	Mansfield NJ. Human Response to Vibration. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2005.
2006	Griffin MJ. Health effects of vibration: the known and the unknown. In: Proceedings of the 1st American Conference on Human Vibration. June 5-7, 2006; Morgantown, MV.3-4.
2014	Asaki T, Peterson DR. Selecting tool-specific vibration-reducing gloves using ISO 5349 and ISO 10819 measurements. In: Proceedings of the 5th American Conference on Human Vibration. June 10-13, 2014; Guelph, ON.27-28.
2014	Asaki T, Peterson DR. Measuring the vibration transmissibility of gloves using different excitation conditions. In: Proceedings of the 5th American Conference on Human Vibration. June 10-13, 2014; Guelph, ON.35-36.
2004	Maeda S, Dong RG. Measurement of hand-transmitted vibration exposures. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Hand-Arm Vibration. June 7-11, 2004; Las Vegas, NV.89-93.
2004	McDowell TW, Dong RG, Welcome DE. A pilot study of glove effects on a force matching method. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Hand-Arm Vibration. June 7-11, 2004; Las Vegas, NV.169-174.
2005	Dong RG, Wu JZ, Welcome DE. Recent advances in biodynamics of human hand-arm system. Ind Health. July 2005;43(3):449-471.
2002	Rakheja S, Dong R, Welcome D, Schopper AW. Estimation of tool-specific isolation performance of antivibration gloves. Int J Ind Ergon. August 2002;30(2):71-87.
2012	Welcome DE, Dong RG, Xu XS, Warren C, McDowell TW. An evaluation of the proposed revision of the anti-vibration glove test method defined in ISO 10819 (1996). Int J Ind Ergon. January 2012;42(1):143-155.
2014	Welcome DE, Dong RG, Xu XS, Warren C, McDowell TW. The effects of vibration-reducing gloves on finger vibration. Int J Ind Ergon. January 2014;44(1):45-59.
2017	Hamouda K, Rakheja S, Marcotte P, Dewangan KN. Fingers vibration transmission performance of vibration reducing gloves. Int J Ind Ergon. November 2017;62:55-69.
2009	Dong RG, McDowell TW, Welcome DE, Warren C, Wu JZ, Rakheja S. Analysis of anti-vibration gloves mechanism and evaluation methods. J Sound Vibrat. March 20, 2009;321(1-2):435-453.
2010	Adewusi SA, Rakheja S, Marcotte P, Boutin J. Vibration transmissibility characteristics of the human hand–arm system under different postures, hand forces and excitation levels. J Sound Vibrat. July 5, 2010;329(14):2953-2971.
2019	Xu XS, Welcome DE, Warren CM, McDowell TW, Dong RG. Development of a finger adapter method for testing and evaluating vibration-reducing gloves and materials. Measurement. April 2019;137:362-374.
2009	Adewusi SA. Distributed Biodynamic Characteristics of the Human Hand-Arm System Coupled With Vibrating Handles and Power Tools [PhD thesis]. Concordia University; August 2009.
2011	Leduc MG. Examination of Vibration Characteristics and Transmissibility Properties of "Anti-Vibration" Mats for Workers Exposed to Vibration Via the Feet [Master's thesis]. Sudbury, ON: Laurentian University; 2011.
2017	Shivpaul RA. The Effects of a Visco-Elastic Polymer Glove on Hand-Arm Vibration, Muscle Activity, and Comfort During Simulated Power Tool Use [Master's thesis]. University of Ontario Institute of Technology; 2017.