Lab and Field Based Approach for the Selection of Tool-Specific Vibration-Reducing Gloves

Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) has been a well-recognized occupational disease for many decades. In order to protect the workers from harmful vibration exposures originating from an excessive amount of power tool vibration, vibration-reducing (VR), or antivibration (AV), gloves have been considered as beneficial personal protective equipment (PPE); however, commercially available gloves provide limited vibration protection to the hand-arm system. In addition, the use of VR PPE is not covered in the OSHA standards and regulations and vibration exposure control to the hand-arm system has not been effectively considered in the U.S. In order to protect the workers from excessive vibration exposures, a methodology of proper glove selection based on actual tool vibrations is needed that will realistically decrease the chance of these unwanted exposures. The evaluation method of VR gloves defined in ISO 10819 has been widely implemented internationally but the process is based on limited vibration exposure conditions that are conducted and assessed in controlled laboratory environments. Although a small number of VR gloves exist that have passed an ISO 10819 evaluation, they may not reduce actual vibration exposure levels and risks in the workplace. In order to fill the gap between laboratory and worksite vibration exposure assessment and to use this information to develop practical PPE technology, this dissertation: 1) conducted extensive ISO 5349 based vibration measurements on tools at worksites including health risk assessments, 2) used the ISO 10819 vibration spectrum and the actual tool vibration spectra obtained in the field to evaluate existing and newly developed VR gloves and materials, and 3) selected tool-specific VR gloves for use at worksites that were identified visiting the Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) system theory along with power tool vibration spectra and VR glove transmissibility spectra