Vibration reduction of pneumatic percussive rivet tools: Mechanical and ergonomic re-design approaches

Cherng, John G.; Ekşioğlu, Mahmut; Kızılaslan, Kemal

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2008.04.011

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This is consistent with earlier studies which compared the vibration exposures for riveting hammers and conventional bucking bars (Engstrom and Dandanell, 1986; Cherng et al ., 2009). On the other hand, the tungsten and dampened bucking bars exhibited lower weighted accelerations than the riveting hammers in the workplace trials, while all bars showed greater unweighted acceleration averages than the riveting hammer.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…While there have been a few studies on the use of denser materials such as tungsten alloys (Jorgensen and Viswanathan, 2005; Hull, 2007), there is very little information regarding workplace HTV exposures associated with bucking bar use. Although some laboratories have developed test fixtures and techniques for evaluating bucking bars (Treskog, 1994; Cherng et al ., 2009), there is no standardized method for such evaluations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Laboratory and Workplace Assessments of Rivet Bucking Bar Vibration Emissions

McDowell

Warren

et al. 2014

The Annals of Occupational Hygiene

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Sheet metal workers operating rivet bucking bars are at risk of developing hand and wrist musculoskeletal disorders associated with exposures to hand-transmitted vibrations and forceful exertions required to operate these hand tools. New bucking bar technologies have been introduced in efforts to reduce workplace vibration exposures to these workers. However, the efficacy of these new bucking bar designs has not been well documented. While there are standardized laboratory-based methodologies for assessing the vibration emissions of many types of powered hand tools, no such standard exists for rivet bucking bars. Therefore, this study included the development of a laboratory-based method for assessing bucking bar vibrations which utilizes a simulated riveting task. With this method, this study evaluated three traditional steel bucking bars, three similarly shaped tungsten alloy bars, and three bars featuring spring-dampeners. For comparison the bucking bar vibrations were also assessed during three typical riveting tasks at a large aircraft maintenance facility. The bucking bars were rank-ordered in terms of unweighted and frequency-weighted acceleration measured at the hand-tool interface. The results suggest that the developed laboratory method is a reasonable technique for ranking bucking bar vibration emissions; the lab-based riveting simulations produced similar rankings to the workplace rankings. However, the laboratory-based acceleration averages were considerably lower than the workplace measurements. These observations suggest that the laboratory test results are acceptable for comparing and screening bucking bars, but the laboratory measurements should not be directly used for assessing the risk of workplace bucking bar vibration exposures. The newer bucking bar technologies exhibited significantly reduced vibrations compared to the traditional steel bars. The results of this study, together with other information such as rivet quality, productivity, tool weight, comfort, worker acceptance, and initial cost can be used to make informed bucking bar selections.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory and Workplace Assessments of Rivet Bucking Bar Vibration Emissions

McDowell

Warren

et al. 2014

The Annals of Occupational Hygiene

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“…Employers and tool users are initiating programs to replace old tools with improved models. In turn, tool developers have responded to this demand through increased efforts to develop reduced vibration tools such as riveting hammers (Peng, 1994;Cherng et al, 2009). To help buyers evaluate and select lower vibration tools, the ISO developed a series of laboratory-based testing standards for comparing tools according to their tool handle vibration emissions (ISO 8662-1, 1992a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory and field measurements and evaluations of vibration at the handles of riveting hammers

McDowell

Warren

Welcome

et al. 2012

The Annals of Occupational Hygiene

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The use of riveting hammers can expose workers to harmful levels of hand-transmitted vibration (HTV). As a part of efforts to reduce HTV exposures through tool selection, the primary objective of this study was to evaluate the applicability of a standardized laboratory-based riveting hammer assessment protocol for screening riveting hammers. The second objective was to characterize the vibration emissions of reduced vibration riveting hammers and to make approximations of the HTV exposures of workers operating these tools in actual work tasks. Eight pneumatic riveting hammers were selected for the study. They were first assessed in a laboratory using the standardized method for measuring vibration emissions at the tool handle. The tools were then further assessed under actual working conditions during three aircraft sheet metal riveting tasks. Although the average vibration magnitudes of the riveting hammers measured in the laboratory test were considerably different from those measured in the field study, the rank orders of the tools determined via these tests were fairly consistent, especially for the lower vibration tools. This study identified four tools that consistently exhibited lower frequency-weighted and unweighted accelerations in both the laboratory and workplace evaluations. These observations suggest that the standardized riveting hammer test is acceptable for identifying tools that could be expected to exhibit lower vibrations in workplace environments. However, the large differences between the accelerations measured in the laboratory and field suggest that the standardized laboratory-based tool assessment is not suitable for estimating workplace riveting hammer HTV exposures. Based on the frequency-weighted accelerations measured at the tool handles during the three work tasks, the sheet metal mechanics assigned to these tasks at the studied workplace are unlikely to exceed the daily vibration exposure action value (2.5 m s(-2)) using any of the evaluated riveting hammers.

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“…A most significant issue for percussive operations is the structural fatigue due to the repetitive impacts, which has been addressed for manual operations [4,5]. The human health risks can be eliminated by robotic automation, but robots are flexible structures and have limited life expectancy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These tools have been widely used as hammers, drills, chippers, road breakers, and rivet guns in many industries, such as the civil construction and aerospace manufacturing [2,3]. For some industrial applications, manual percussive operations can be tedious, repetitious, costly, and prone to error, and can cause health and ergonomic problems related to human joint fatigue [4,5]. Therefore, there have been increasing interests in the automation for manual operations using percussive tools, especially in the aerospace manufacturing industry [6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%