This paper provides an overview of the exposure-response relationship for the vascular component of the hand-arm vibration syndrome, called vibration-induced white finger (VWF). Over the past two decades, several epidemiological studies have shown a poor agreement between the risk for VWF observed in various occupational groups and that predicted by models included in annexes to International S...

A new frequency weighting method to assess hand-arm vibration exposure is proposed in this paper. The influence of frequency components was first estimated using the method of multivariate analysis, then a simple form of the weighting curve was introduced. Compared with the frequency weighting in the current ISO 5349-1 (2001), the proposed weighting can better explain the relationship between r...

Several cases of exposure to hand-transmitted shocks in two different factories were studied with an intention to improve our knowledge about the influence of the impulsive components of vibration on human being. Two types of shocks affecting the workers could be distinguished, i.e., shocks having small amount of energy at frequencies higher than 100 Hz and shocks having relatively high frequen...

The purpose of this research was to establish a scale for comfort with regard to hand-arm vibration using the category judgment method and to validate the frequency-weighting method of the ISO 5349-1 standard. Experiments were conducted using random signals as stimuli. These stimuli consisted of three types of signal, namely designated stimulus F, with flat power spectrum density (PSD) ranging ...

Nacrtak Despite technological advancements in machinery for timber harvesting, chainsaws are fre­ quently used in forest operations. In Austria 85% of the wood volume harvested (15 million m3) are cut by chainsaws. The two most frequently documented ergonomic threats during motor manual felling include exposure to noise and vibration. This paper presents the results of exposure to hand-arm vibr...

Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) is an occupational disease affecting 50% of riveting hammer operators after 10 years of work. Current international standards (ISO 5349) seeking to protect workers from occupational vibration are not effectively predicting HAVS onset. Scarce research has been done which investigates the long term effects of riveting hammer vibration exposure and nerve regenera...

In this collection of papers we have read about a range of research being applied to understanding the relationship between exposures to hand-transmitted vibration and injury to the hand and arm. These include laboratory studies designed to investigate specific human physiological and psychophysical responses or to determine biodynamic models for the hand and arm; animal surrogate studies to in...

Temporary threshold shifts (TTSs) in vibrotactile perception produced by continuous vibration and repetitive shock have been investigated. Subjects were exposed to vertical hand-transmitted 100 Hz continuous vibration and various repetitive shocks of equal energy content formed from one complete cycle of a 100 Hz sine wave. The repetition rate of the cycles was 5, 25, 50, or 100 s-1 while the r...