Human responses to vibration and vibration control

本研究的主要目的是通过系统的分析和实验研究，探讨人体对职业性全身和局部振动暴露的反应，并通过振动控制寻求有效的干预措施。这项研究的动机源于这样一个事实，即职业暴露于节段和全身机械振动与一系列肌肉骨骼疾病和安全风险有关。例如，由手持电动工具振动引起的手传振动（HTV）的职业暴露与手臂系统的血管、感觉神经和肌肉骨骼结构的各种疾病有关，而暴露于公路和越野工作车辆的WBV与脊柱和支撑结构的疾病、不适、疲劳和工作效率的损失有关。在美国、加拿大、欧洲和日本，这种疾病的年度成本估计为数十亿美元，包括缺勤、生产力损失、健康和赔偿成本。 该研究计划将侧重于一些具体的研究，以实现其特定的目标，其中包括：（一）开发多体动力学模型的上半身坐在刚性和柔性支持和暴露于WBV;（二）开发多维模型的人类手臂暴露于HTV;（三）探索方法，以确定可靠的模型参数;（iv）研究振动能量转移至生物系统内各子结构的情况，并探讨替代权重及其与现有流行病学数据的关系;（v）描述坐着的人体对沿着水平轴的全身振动的生物动力学反应;及（vi）探索振动控制机制以减少对所坐主体的振动剂量。预计研究工作将有助于正在进行的全球标准化工作，以制定评估职业冲击和振动所造成的健康和安全风险的准则和方法。

The primary goal of this research proposal is to investigate human responses to occupational whole-body and segmental vibration exposure through systematic analytical and experimental investigations, and to seek effective interventions through vibration control. The motivations for the research stem from the fact that occupational exposure to segmental and whole-body mechanical vibration has been associated with an array of musculoskeletal disorders and safety risks. For example, the occupational exposure of hand-transmitted vibration (HTV) arising from hand-held power tools vibration has been related to various disorders in vascular, sensorineural and musculoskeletal structures of the hand-arm system, while the exposure to WBV of road and off-road work vehicles has been related to disorders of the spine and supporting structure, discomfort, fatigue and loss of working efficiency. The annual costs of such disorders in US, Canada, Europe and Japan has been estimated in the order of several billions of dollars, including the absenteeism, loss of productivity and health and compensation costs. The research program will focus on a number of specific studies in order to achieve its specific goals, which will include: (i) development of mulitbody dynamic models of the upper body seated with rigid and flexible supports and exposed to WBV; (ii) development of a multi-dimensional model of the human hand-arm exposed to HTV; (iii) explore methods for identifying reliable model parameters; (iv) investigate vibration energy transfer to various substructures within the biological system, and explore alternate weightings and its relations with the available epidemiological data; (v) characterize biodynamic responses of the seated human body to whole-body vibration along the horizontal axes; and (vi) explore vibration control mechanisms to reduce the vibration dosage for the seated body. The research works are expected to contribute to the ongoing global standardization efforts towards building guidelines and methods for assessing the health and safety risks imposed by occupational shock and vibration exposures.