• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.371-378
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• 2014

Manual materials handling tasks are the main risk factors for the work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Many assistant tools for manual materials handling are being used in various kind of industries. One of them is a 4-wheeled cart which is widely used in manufacturing factories, hospitals, etc. The major force required to control the 4-wheeled cart is pushing and pulling. There are two types of handles being used for the 4-wheeled cart : vertical type (two vertical handles), and horizontal type (one horizontal handle). This study tried to investigate the pushing forces and subjective discomforts (hand/writst, shoulder, low back, and overall) of the two handle types with different handle height and distance conditions. Twelve healthy male students (mean age = 23.4 years) participated in the experiment. The independent variables were handle angle (horizontal, vertical), handle height (low, medium, high), and handle distance (narrow, medium, wide). The full factorial design was used for the experiment and the maximum pushing forces were measured in 18 different conditions ($2{\times}3{\times}3$). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure was conducted to test the effects of the independent variables on the pushing force and discomfort levels. Handle height and angle were found to be the critical design factors that affect the maximal pushing forces and subjective discomfort. In the middle height, subjects exerted higher pushing forces, and experience lower discomfort levels compared to the high, and low height. There was no statistical influence of the handle distance to the pushing forces and subjective discomfort levels. It was found out that the effects of the handle angle (horizontal and vertical) on both pushing force and subjective discomfort were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The vertical handle revealed higher pushing force and lower discomfort level than the horizontal handle. The reason for that was thought to be the different postures of the hand when grasping the handles. The horizontal handle induced pronaton of the hand and made hand posture more deviated from the neutral position.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.123-129
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• 2013

Among various manual materials handling tasks, pushing/pulling was known to be one of the risk factors for the low back and shoulder musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). This study was conducted to find out an optimal solution set of the handle height and distance for 4-wheel cart with two vertical handles. Ten male college students participated in the pushing force measurement experiment. The face-centered cube design, one of the central composite designs, was applied for the experiment, and the isometric voluntary pushing force was measured in 9 treatment conditions. The second order response surface model was predicted by using the pushing strength as a response variable, and the handle height and distance as independent factors. According to the 2nd order response model, the handle height and distance showed nonlinear relationship with the isometric pushing strength. To maximize the 2nd order response model (pushing force), the handle height and distance were optimized. The optimal handle height was 'xyphoid process height - stature', and the optimal handle distance was '$1.25{\times}shoulder$ width'. When calculated using the anthropometric data of the subjects of this study, the optimal handle height was $115.4{\pm}3.4$ cm, slightly higher than the elbow height, and the handle distance was $52.9{\pm}2.3$ cm.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2008

This study aims to investigate the effect of handle angles of pliers on performance, wrist motion and subjective rating of satisfaction. An experiment was conducted, in which handle angle of pliers was used as independent variable and 14 subjects participated. Based on the literature survey, plier handles angled at 0$^{\circ}$, 10$^{\circ}$, 20$^{\circ}$, 30$^{\circ}$ and 40$^{\circ}$ were adopted in the experiment. The subjects were instructed to bend iron plates by 90$^{\circ}$ and to cut wires as soon as possible. The results revealed that 1) handle angles of pliers have significant effect on wrist motion and satisfaction(p<0.0001); 2) handle angles of pliers did not affect performance of completing tasks irrespective of types of tasks done in the study; 3) in the initial stage of windup, plier with handle angled at 20$^{\circ}$ produced the least wrist motion of deviation in task of bending iron plates, while plier with handle angled at 40$^{\circ}$ did in task of cutting wires; 4) degree of satisfaction was maximized when handle of pliers was bent by 20$^{\circ}$ in both tasks. On the basis of the results, it is recommended that handle of pliers be bent by 20-30$^{\circ}$ for reducing musculoskeletal disorders related to pliers.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.469-474
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• 2012

The aim of this study is to develop an ergonomic design of magic saw handle considering user experiences. Background: Frequent use of hand tool can cause musculoskeletal disorders by inadequate wrist posture, excessive strength, repetitiveness, friction and pressure, vibration, etc. A hand tool that is inappropriately designed has higher risk causing musculoskeletal disorders. Complaints for the design of magic saw handle has been raised by many users according to the increasing use of magic saw. Method: Hand tool has to be designed considering worker's characteristics and task condition to prevent worker's musculoskeletal disorders. For this, user experiences for magic saw handle were measured through questionnaire survey and observation. Results: An ergonomic design of magic saw handle considering user experiences was proposed and then its design suitability was evaluated in comparison with the existing handle design using EMG and subjective evaluation. Conclusion: The proposed handle design showed higher satisfaction and lower muscular fatigue. Application: The results of this study can be effectively used to develop a new magic saw.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.147-154
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• 1998

The objective of this study was to evaluate quantitatively the effects of handle types of garden tools on the ergonomic effectiveness, user satisfaction in terms of work performance, and subjective judgment of tactile feel and control. The approach was to compare garden tools with conventional wood handle and newly developed fiberglass handle, and to utilize three different tools: shovel, rake, and hoe. The hollow fiberglass handle was 12% more efficient than either the wood or solid fiberglass handle. The next important measure was the subjective ratings of the perceived exertion averaged across three different tools. The average ratings for the hollow fiberglass handle were the smallest. In conclusion, the hollow fiberglass handle showed better efficiency and better subjective acceptability for comfort, tactile feel, and especially decreased slipperiness.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 1997

The objectives of this study were twofold; (1) to determine an optimal handle size of a signal billy, based on the subjective assessment of grip comfort and (2) to investigate the relationship between hand anthropometry and the optimal handle size. Thirty-seven university male students were asked to rate seven cylindrical handles of different diameters in barehanded and gloved conditions, respectively. Among these handles, 3.5cm diameter of the handle size was found to be the most comfortable, in both bardhanded and gloved conditionsl. However, no statistically significant reduction in grip comfort occurred within handle diameter ranging from 2.5cm to 4.0cm. As the handle diameter was deivated from the range, grip discomfort in creased significantly. A Spearman rank correlation coefficient test revealed that hand anthropometries such as finger lengths, hand circumference, and hand thickness were statistically significant factors on the determination of the optimal handle size. The implications of these findings were discussed. The results of this study can be used as guidelines in designing the hand tools for power grip.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.20 no.43
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• pp.197-204
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• 1997

Torques on each joint, the compression on L5/S1 disc, the force on hand of a rider are estimated using a static biomechnic model. Forces that the rider applies to the pedals, saddle and handle during starting and speeding are estimated using static mechanics. Physical stress is considered accroding to handle height and horizontal distance between handle and pedal. When handle height is higher in normal speeding, the force on handle and sum of torques on each joint decreases.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1226-1232
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• 2010

A door can serve as a feature for place classification and localization for navigation of a mobile robot in indoor environments. This paper proposes a door detection method based on the recognition of various door handles using the general Hough transform (GHT) and support vector machine (SVM). The contour and color histogram of a door handle extracted from the database are used in GHT and SVM, respectively. The door recognition scheme consists of four steps. The first step determines the region of interest (ROI) images defined by the color information and the environment around the door handle for stable recognition. In the second step, the door handle is recognized using the GHT method from the ROI image and the image patches are extracted from the position of the recognized door handle. In the third step, the extracted patch is classified whether it is the image patch of a door handle or not using the SVM classifier. The door position is probabilistically determined by the recognized door handle. Experimental results show that the proposed method can recognize various door handles and detect doors in a robust manner.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.253-260
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• 2010

The drop handle in the Chosun-Dynasty played a role lifting up the cabinet and box which was attached to and besides this had the decoration function. The scope of this study should include the drop handles from the $18^{th}$ century up to now by investigating and analyzing their definition & function and furthermore the types of their designs. The object of the study was the drop handle having 2 golden fixing parts which are definitive difference from ring or loop, and the design typology of drop handle was concentrated on the handle part, and it can be classified in two types. The one is the figuration of bow, bat, bamboo, fish and bird and so on from the motive of nature on the handle part, and the other one is the drop handle of the simple ㄷ-shape, the temple-symbol shape or geometrical forms. According to the analysis of relics & literature from the past it was found that there were more quantitative nature-motive figurations than the geometrical forms. The nature-motive figurations were again classified in box-, bat-, cloud- bamboo-, fish- and bird-type, and the geometrical forms in ㄷ-shape, the temple-symbol shape and others. The cases applied to furniture are roughly divided into the front-attached type and the side-attached type. In comparison of the drop handle in the Chosun-Dynasty with that of modern times, ㄷ-shape and bow-type keep the long tradition of the drop handles despite of the constructive change partly. Ring-type is similar to the just ring or loop of the part and drop handle with one golden fixing part, while the knob-type shows almost same forms in the past as well as in the modern times. Which type among handles in the modern times has little connection with the past is the reclaimed type, and it was showed in the Chosun-Dynasty and also is showed up to now identically that the man-made hole on the front side of the drawer for the function as handle.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.357-360
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• 2011

In these days, the passenger vehicles usually have equipped various comfort & security systems to appeal to customers. And then, the importance of emotional quality gives added weight to the noise performance of those system devices. Door inside handle system is one of the most popular devices for passenger. This paper shows developing process about the operating sound of door inside handle. We used DFSS process to develop the door inside handle snap back sound and confirmed the improvement.