Design of new anti-vibration gloves for workers: ongoing research and preliminary results

Abstract

Powered hand-held tools such as drillers, chainsaws, blowers, etc. cause hand-arm vibration syndrome. Common anti-vibration gloves cannot attenuate the vibrations at low frequencies and satisfy workers due to a lack of dexterity and grip strength. Therefore, the study presents a new glove based on an absorber to reduce vibration transmission at low frequencies. The new gloves and the passive absorbers are affordable and made of simple components, rubber rods, and violin strings with different sizes are the base of the used absorbers to attenuate the range of working frequencies. To predict the effectiveness of the fabricated gloves, the study performed experiments using non-expensive tools. A smartphone and a credible Android application (IDynamics) are utilized to measure the response in the wrist when using an air blower 450 W in specific working conditions. Additionally, the study builds a simple test rig to carry out the effect of the new gloves on the dexterity. Accordingly, the suggested low-cost gloves achieve a 50% acceleration reduction at the wrist approximately to the bare hand or any current anti-vibration gloves that are specified for the higher frequencies only.