International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ergon

Biomechanical models of the hand-arm system to predict the hand gripping

forces and transmitted vibration
Zunming Wang, Yi Qiu, Xu Zheng, Zhiyong Hao, Chi Liu *
Department of Energy Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the rapid development of logistics, forklifts are increasingly used in warehouses and other industrial sites.
Hand and arm vibration Drivers of the forklifts experience vibration and noise affecting the ride comfort during work. Focusing on the
Transmissibility hand and arm vibration, this paper proposed a hybrid hand-arm model to represent the vibration transmitted
Pressure distribution
from the steering wheel of a forklift to the hand and arm with different grasping forces. The model consisted of
the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, and hand connected by joints with stiffness and damping. The hand model
included the palm and five fingers, with each finger being modelled with the distal, middle, and proximal
segments interconnected via revolute joints. Surface-to-surface contact was adopted between the hand and
handle, and self-contact was defined for the hand. Moments were applied to finger joints to simulate the active
muscle forces when gripping the handle. The material properties of the skin, bones, and subcutaneous tissues
were determined based on published literatures. The parameters were further adjusted to match the contact
pressures and vibrations of the hand and arms when griping a vibrating handle reported in literatures. The
calibrated model was then used to predict the vibration transmissibility of the hand-arm system from the steering
wheel of a working forklift and reasonably good results were obtained. The results showed that the developed
model accounting for the grasping force and the contact conditions between the hand and handle is capable of
predicting the vibration transmission of the hand-arm system of vehicle drivers.

1. Introduction
During operations of internal combustion forklifts, drivers often
experience excessive vibration through the steering wheel and seats.
Excessive vibration at the hands may cause discomfort to the drivers,
reduce work efficiency and cause harm to health (House et al., 2012).
The vibration white finger (VWF) , which often results from the
degraded blood circulation in the fingers, is related to the long-term
exposure to the high contact pressures at fingers with high magnitude
of vibration (Ekenvall and Lindblad, 1986; Bovenzi, 1988). A hand-arm
model that can predict the contact pressure at the fingers and also the
dynamics of hands and arms can assist in evaluating and assessing
hand-arm vibrations for hand-held vibrating tools.
The models used to analyze the biomechanics of the hand and arm
with vibration excitation may be divided into four types. The most
commonly used models are the lumped parametric models which
include lumped masses and discrete stiffness and damping elements. The
model parameters are often obtained by fitting the calculated responses
to the measured results based on optimization (Jahn and Hesse, 1986;
Adewusi et al., 2012, 2013; Dong et al., 2013, 2018; Hida et al., 2021).
These models have been used to represent the dynamic responses of the
hand and arm at certain locations, but are difficult for predicting the
contact pressure at the hand-handle interface or the stress in the tissues.
The second type of models are the multi-body models which have been
widely used for predicting hand-arm vibrations based on anatomical
structures. Sancho-Bru et al. (2001, 2003) proposed a model of the hand
to evaluate the muscle force in the fingers during grasping. Wu et al.
(2009a, 2010) developed biomechanical models of the index finger and
the thumb to simulate the kinematics of the muscle/tendon excursions.
Knez et al. (2017) proposed a novel and sequential approach to model
the fingers. Since the soft tissues of the hand were not included in the
multi-body model, the contact pressures and the vibration characteris­
tics of the hand-arm system could not be calculated. The third type of
models are finite-element (FE) models. FE models can be used to
represent the dynamics of hands and arms as well as the stress in the soft
tissues. However, many of them are developed without applying muscle
forces or articular joint moments of hands (Wu et al., 2007, 2008, 2012)
which are required especially when the effect of various gripping forces

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liuchi0511@gmail.com (C. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2021.103258
Received 10 May 2021; Received in revised form 31 October 2021; Accepted 19 December 2021
Available online 5 January 2022
0169-8141/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Wang et al.
on the contact pressures are of interest. The fourth type of models are the
hybrid models that combine the characteristics of the aforementioned
three types of models. They are capable of analyzing the coupling effect
between the active muscle force and the vibration characteristics of the
model (Wu et al., 2014, 2017). The hand-arm system is a nonlinear
system when various grasping forces are considered. The change in the
material properties at different locations of the hand with various
gripping forces is expected to depend on the detailed pressure distri­
bution over the contact surfaces, which could not be modelled with
traditional multi-body models. The hybrid models combining the ad­
vantages of multi-body models and FE models are considered to be
appropriate to model the dynamics of the hand and arm as well as the
stress in the soft tissues. While the method of hybrid modelling has been
applied in the finger-hand models (Wu et al., 2014, 2017), a hybrid
model of the entire hand-arm system has not been reported.
This study focused on developing a hybrid hand-arm model for
simulating the contact pressures between the hand and a vibrating
handle during hand gripping and the vibration transmissibility of the
hand-arm system. The parameters of the model were determined based
on the transmissibility spectra measured on the hand and arm from
published studies (Adewusi et al., 2012; Welcome et al., 2015). The
model was then integrated with the steering wheel model of a forklift to
predict the vibration transmitted from the steering wheel to various
locations of the hand and arm. The integrated model was used to predict
the vibration transmissibility spectra and compared with experimental
data measured in the operation of a forklift.
2. Method
2.1. Hybrid finite element model
The geometries of the hand-arm system were established in Poser
software based on the human body model in the software database
developed based on the human anatomy and anthropometry (Du et al.,
2013; Guo et al., 2016). The lengths of the right-hand fingers were
scaled to the mean values measured by Buchholtz et al. (1992). The
angles of the joints of the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers were
adjusted to provide the handle gripping posture that is usually used for
anti-vibration glove tests as defined in ISO 10819 (2013). A cylinder
handle with the diameter of 40 mm and length of 150 mm as recom­
mended in ISO 10819 (2013) was created in the software.
The hybrid model of the hand-arm system and the handle were
established based on the geometries as described above. The FE model
consisted of the shoulder, the upper arm, the forearm, the palm, the
thumb, the index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, and the little
finger (Fig. 1). Each finger consisted of the distal, middle, and proximal
Fig. 1. The hybrid model of the hand-arm system: (a) the outer surface of each segment of the model, (b) the interconnection of the skeletal system.
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258
segments. Each segment included bones, soft tissues (i.e., skin, subcu­
taneous tissues, and muscles) and connective joints.
The shoulder joint and wrist joint were modelled as universal joints
with three rotational degrees of freedom (DOF). The elbow joint was
modelled as a hinge joint with one rotational DOF. The distal inter­
phalangeal joint (DIP), proximal interphalangeal joint (PIP), and met­
acarpophalangeal joint (MCP) that connect the finger segments were
modelled as hinge joints. Adduction and abduction of the MCP joints
were omitted in the hand gripping posture. Rotational stiffness and
damping were assigned to the joints to consider its viscoelastic proper­
ties. All the nodes at the end of the shoulder were linked to the ground
via three translational spring units in the x-, y-, and z-directions and the
rotational spring units were not considered for simplification. The dis­
placements of both ends of the handle were fully constrained.
The outer surface of the hand and arm was regarded as the skin. The
meshes for the subcutaneous tissues and muscles were created as one
homogeneous component between the bones and the skin and were
divided into two parts at the wrist for the convenience of the model
calibration, refered to as the ‘hand part’ and the ‘arm part’ respectively.
Surface-to-surface contact pairs were constructed between the external
surfaces of the hand and the handle. Self-contact was defined for the
outer surfaces of the hand to avoid self-penetration during the analysis.
To avoid the divergence due to the initial rigid body movement caused
by the gap between the fingers and the handle, there existed a small
amount of initial interference between the finger and the handle. A
friction coefficient was assumed as 0.5 at the skin and handle contact
interface.
2.2. Material properties of the model
Similar to other models (Du et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2014, 2017),
homogeneous and isotropic materials were used for the bones and soft
tissues in the model. The bones and skin were assigned with the linear
elastic material while the subcutaneous tissues and muscles were
modelled with Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic material, which was gov­
erned by the strain energy potential:
1
U = C10 (I 1 − 3) + C01 (I 2 − 3) + (J − 1)2 (1)
D1
where U is the strain energy per unit of reference volume; C10 , C01 , and
D1 are temperature-dependent material parameters; I1 and I2 are the
first and second deviatoric strain invariants; J is the elastic volume ratio.
The parameters of Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic material were constants
in the current model neglecting the temperature-dependent effect,
considering the room temperature was kept constant during the test.
Z. Wang et al.
Rayleigh damping was added to the skin and soft tissues.
2.3. Procedures of analysis
The analysis was performed in two stages: 1) quasi-static analysis so
that the fingers and palm were in contact with the handle to ‘grip’ the
handle; 2) dynamic analysis with excitation of vibration.
2.3.1. Quasi-static analysis
Gripping the handle was achieved in the model by applying moments
at the DIP, PIP, and MCP joints of the fingers to keep them in contact
with the handle. The moment applied at each joint was derived from the
gripping force distributed at a finger due to a certain total grip force and
the ratio of the moments applied at the three joints of the finger. The
gripping force distributed at a finger was estimated based on a previous
study (Freund et al., 2002) following Eq. (2):
( )
f (i) D may affect the responses of the fingers. During the test, the driver sat on
= α(i) (i) (2)
f l
where f (i) is the grip force of a finger (i stands for the index, middle, ring
or little finger); f is the total grip force, equal to the sum of all the
distributed forces at each finger; D represents the diameter of the handle;
l(i) is the length of each finger; α(i) is factor obtained in experiment, as
listed in Table 1 (Freund et al., 2002). The ratio of the moments applied
at the DIP, PIP, and MCP joints was suggested in a previous study (Wu
et al., 2014) and was later adjusted in the current study as described in
Section 2.4.
2.3.2. Dynamic analysis
Following the quasi-static analysis, the steady-state dynamic analysis
was conducted in the frequency domain from 1 to 500 Hz with a step of
1 Hz. A harmonic vibration excitation in three translational directions
with the acceleration magnitude of 16 m/s2 in each direction was
applied to the center of the handle. The accelerations were extracted
from the model at the shoulder, the upper arm, the forearm, on the wrist,
and on the outer surfaces of the distal, middle and proximal segment of
the middle finger (Fig. 2). The vibration transmissibility from the handle
to each of the body locations was calculated according to Eq. (3):
Ai (ω)
Ti (ω) = (3)
Ah (ω)
where Ti (ω) is the transmissibility at the ith body location; Ai (ω) and
Ah (ω) are the acceleration magnitude calculated at the ith point and the
handle, respectively.
2.4. Model calibration
In the quasi-static analysis, the ratio of the moments at the DIP, PIP,
and MCP joints suggested in a previous study (Wu et al., 2014) was
applied initially. This ratio was later adjusted in the current model by
fitting the modelled contact pressures with the measured data reported
in Wu et al. (2014). The ratio was finally determined at 1.00:3.46:5.52
between the DIP, PIP, and MCP joints.
For the steady-state dynamic analysis, the material parameters of the
model and the parameters of the connective joints were initialized ac­
cording to a previous study (Wu et al., 2017) and then calibrated for the
grip force of 30 N to fit the modelled transmissibility spectra to the data
measured in Welcome et al. (2015). Firstly, the joint stiffness and the
Table 1
The recommended practical estimate of α(i) for modelling.
Finger Index Middle Ring Little
α(i) 1/3 1/3 2/9 1/9
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258
density and stiffness properties of bones and soft tissues of the ‘hand
part’ and ‘arm part’ were calibrated to represent the measured reso­
nance frequencies of the hand-arm system. Secondly, the damping
properties of the soft tissues were adjusted to represent the modulus of
the measured transmissibility spectra. During calibration, the adjust­
ment to the parameters was ensured to be in a reasonable physical range
as reported in Wu et al. (2017). The calibrated material parameters of
the hand-arm model are listed in Table 2.
2.5. Model verification and prediction
The calibrated model was further applied to an engineering practice
to verify its suitability and accuracy. In this project, the vibration
transmitted from the steering wheel of an operating forklift (Fig. 3(b)) to
various locations of the hand and arm as shown in Fig. 3(d) was
measured. The vibrations of the fingers were not measured with the
current test setup considering the mass of the accelerometers (10.5 g)
the seat in an upright sitting position with the right hand on the steering
wheel at the 3 o’clock position.
Tri-axial PCB accelerometers were deployed at four mounting posi­
tions of the steering column to obtain the vibration excitation of the
steering wheel (Fig. 3(c)). Another tri-axial accelerometer was glued to
the top surface of the steering wheel next to the thumb and the index
finger. Four Tri-axial accelerometers were glued on the masking tapes
attached to the hand dorsum, the wrist, the forearm near the elbow, and
the upper arm near the elbow to obtain the vibration responses of the
hand and arm.
Measurement was conducted with the full load of the engine. For
convenience during model verification, the vehicle coordinate system
defined in ISO 8855 (2011) was adopted (Fig. 3(a)) instead of the
biodynamic coordinate system of the hand-arm. The orientation of each
sensor relative to the vehicle coordinates were recorded, and all the
measured accelerations were converted into the vehicle coordinates by
applying the rotation matrix of the Euler angles:
⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞
X x x
⎝ Y ⎠ = R⎝ y ⎠ = Rx (α) ⋅ Ry (β) ⋅ Rz (γ)⎝ y ⎠
Z z z
⎛ ⎞⎛ ⎞⎛ ⎞⎛ ⎞
1 0 0 cos β 0 sin β cos γ − sin γ 0 x
⎝
= 0 cos α − sin α ⎠ ⎝ 0 1 0 ⎠ ⎝ sin γ cos γ 0 ⎠⎝ y ⎠
0 sin α cos α − sin β 0 cos β 0 0 1 z
(4)
where X, Y, Z are the vehicle coordinates; x, y, z are the coordinates of
each accelerometer. α is the angle around the x-axis; β is the angle
around the y-axis; γ is the angle around the z-axis. Each angle of each
accelerometer was shown in Table 3. The vibration transmissibility
spectra measured from the steering wheel to each measuring point of the
hand-arm system in three orthogonal directions were finally obtained.
The root-sum-square of transmissibility spectra in all three directions
were further calculated.
As for modelling, the geometries of the hand-arm system was
adjusted to the actual posture of holding the steering wheel in Poser and
then the hybrid dynamic model was established according to Sections
2.2 and 2.3 with the parameters identified in Seciton 2.4. The hybrid
model was integreated with the calibrated forklift steering wheel FE
model via contact pairs (Fig. 4). The measured acceleration excitations
were applied to the mounting positions of the steering wheel (Fig. 4(a)).
The calculated transmissibility spectra of each point using the calibrated
model were compared with the measured results and the strain distri­
butions at the palm and fingers were predicted.
Z. Wang et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

Fig. 2. Body locations for the calculation of the transmitted vibration of the hand-arm system: (a) point 1 on the shoulder, point 2 on the upper arm, point 3 on the
forearm and point 4 on the wrist of the arm; (b) point 1 outer surface on the distal segment, point 2 on the middle segment, and point 3 on the proximal segment of
the middle finger.

Table 2
The material parameters of the hand-arm model and the handle and the parameters of the connective joints and springs.
Materials Density (kg/m3) Young’s modulus (MPa) Poisson’s ratio

Calibrated Wu et al. (2017) Calibrated Wu et al. (2017) Calibrated Wu et al. (2017)

Bone 1.6 × 103 2.0 × 103 18,000 17,500 0.3 0.3

Skin 1.1 × 103 1.5 × 103 1.5 0.15 0.46 0.46
Handle 2.7 × 103 2.8 × 103 70,000 70,000 0.33 0.3

Materials Density(kg/m3) C10 (kPa) C01 (kPa) D1

Calibrated Wu et al. (2017) Calibrated Wu et al., 2017 Calibrated Wu et al., 2017 Calibrated Wu et al. (2017)

Soft tissues (Hand) 1.2 × 103 1.5 × 103 1.9 1.3 3.4 6.1 3.2 1
Soft tissues (Arm) 1.1 × 103 1.5 × 103 1.5 1.3 3.3 6.1 3.6 1

Connections Rotational Stiffness (N⋅m/rad) Rotational Damping (kg⋅m2/(s⋅rad))

Current model Wu et al., 2017 Current model Wu et al., 2017

DIP joint 0.025 0.01 0.015 0.05

PIP joint 0.025 0.01 0.015 0.05
MCP joint 0.025 0.01 0.015 0.05
Wrist joint 0.05 (X, Y, Z) – 0.02 (X, Y, Z) –
Elbow joint 0.025 – 0.015 –
Shoulder joint 0.05 – 0.02 (X, Y, Z) –

Connections Translational Stiffness (kN/m) Translational Damping (kN/(m/s))

Current model Wu et al., 2017 Current model Wu et al., 2017

Shoulder-to-ground spring 100 - - -

3. Results Hz were not observed in the measured results.

3.1. Comparison of contact pressures and vibration transmission between
the model and the measurement
The contact pressure on the handle, fingers, and palm surface was
calculated for four grip forces (Fig. 5). The modelled pressure distribu­
tion at the interface between the hand and the handle showed the similar
pattern as the measured distribution, with the maximum pressure
observed beneath the index and middling fingertips, consistent with Wu
et al. (2014). The comparison of the maximum contact pressures be­
tween the model and the measured data reported in Wu et al. (2014) was
provided in Table 4. The contact pressures were found to increase with
increasing grip forces.
The calculated transmissibility spectra measured at the arm (shown
in Fig. 6(a)-(d)) show the similar frequency dependency compared with
those measured in Welcome et al. (2015). The frequency and modulus of
the principal resonance at about 25 Hz in the transmissibility spectra are
consistent with that of the measured results. However, the secondary
resonance peaks at point 1, 2, 3 around 85 Hz and at point 4 around 110
The transmissibility spectra calculated at the fingers (shown in Fig. 6
(e)–(g)) show reasonably good agreement with the measured results.
The response frequency of the calculated transmissibility of point 1 was
slightly lower than the measured result. The minor peak appeared at
point 2 around 220 Hz, which was different with the measured result.
The peak magnitude of point 2 was higher than the measured result.
3.2. Application of the model for representing hand-arm responses to
steering wheel vibration in a forklift
The strain distributions at the palm and fingers are shown in Fig. 7.
The maximum compressive strains appeared in the contact areas be­
tween the fingers and the steering wheel when the gripping force of 40 N
was applied to the model. Fig. 8 shows the spectra of vibration measured
at the steering wheel in three axes with frequency resolution of 0.25 Hz.
It can be seen that the vibration generated by the engine with full load
has a fundamental frequency at 87 Hz. The general trends of the
calculated transmissibility spectra at the arm are in good agreement
with the experimental results (Fig. 9). However, some discrepancies to

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Z. Wang et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

Fig. 3. The adopted (a) forklift, and (b) steering wheel for the application of the calibrated model. The accelerometers placed on (c) the mounting positions of the
steering column, (d) the top surface of the steering wheel, the hand dorsum, the wrist, the forearm, and the upper arm.

Table 3
The Euler angles of each accelerometer in the test.
Positions Steering Wheel Hand dorsum Wrist Forearm Upper arm

Angles α 1.2 ◦
β 29.8◦
γ − 2.3◦
α − 5.5
◦
β 19.5◦
γ 42.1◦
α − 4.0◦
α 10.2 ◦
α − 3.1◦
β 4.2◦ β − 4.5◦ β 3.4◦
γ − 9.8◦ γ − 2.0◦ γ − 13.6◦

Fig. 4. The hand-arm model intergrated with the calibrated model of the steering wheel: (a) side view of the model, (b) front view of the model.

the measured results could be observed, especially on the hand dorsum 4. Discussion
and the wrist.
Comparing the measured results (Welcome et al., 2015) and the re­
sults of the calibrated model, some minor discrepancies could be
observed. The reasons for discrepancies might be:

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Z. Wang et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

Fig. 5. The contact pressure distributions on the handle, fingers, and palm surface under (a) 5 N, (b) 10 N, (c) 20 N, (d) 40 N grip forces.

Table 4
The comparison of the maximum contact pressures between the model and the measurement.
Grip force (N) Maximum contact pressure (kPa)

Model Measurement

Index Middle Ring Little Index Middle Ring Little

5 70 70 50 25 75 70 75 30
10 110 110 60 55 110 100 160 50
20 190 180 220 130 250 190 215 150
40 400 400 260 230 410 390 300 250

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Z. Wang et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

Fig. 6. The calculated transmissibility: (a) point 1 on the shoulder, (b) point 2 on the upper arm, (c) point 3 on the forearm, (d) point 4 on the wrist, (e) point 1 on the
proximal finger segment, (f) point 2 on the middle finger segment, (g) point 3 on the distal finger segment. Measured values are from (Welcome et al., 2015).

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Z. Wang et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258

Fig. 7. The logarithmic strain distributions at (a) the cross section of the middle finger and (b) the skin surfaces of the fingers.

1. For the simplification, the material properties of the soft tissues were
assumed to be homogeneous and isotropic and not affected by the
muscular activations. However measurements of the mechanical
properties of the soft tissue have shown to be inhomogeneous and
anisotropic (Simms et al., 2012). Further studies are needed to un­
derstand how the inhomogeneous stiffness and anisotropy in the soft
tissues would affect the contact pressures and dynamics of the
hand-arm system.
2. The mechanical properties of the materials of the joints of the fingers
and arms were simplified in the model with the rotational stiffness
and damping associated with the joints. The similar treatment is also
seen in other biodynamic models of the hand-arm system (Wu et al.,
2017; Adewusi et al., 2012). Although the stiffness and damping of
the joints are consistent with those reported in other studies (see
Table 2), the hand-arm musculoskeletal joints have more complex
Fig. 8. The vibration spectra of the steering wheel along the three-axis.
and nonlinear behaviours involving influences of muscles and liga­
ments compared to a simple mechanical joint, which may cause
differences between the modelled and measured responses.

Fig. 9. The calculated vibration transmissibility on the (a) hand dorsum, (b) wrist, (c) forearm, (d) upper arm. Measured values are from the operating forklift.

8
Z. Wang et al.
3. The resonance frequencies of the model (especially the arm) were
both determined by the material parameters of the FE model and the
joint parameters of the multi-body model. The adjustment of mate­
rial parameters were conducted based on the responses at low fre­
quencies (around 25 Hz) in calibration, which leads to the lack of
adjustment at relative high frequency (around 100 Hz).
In the application of the model to the steering wheel of the forklift,
the discrepancies in the measured and the calculated results might be
caused by the posture of the hand and arms being changed from the
standardized one as defined in ISO 10819 to the one with the hand on
the steering wheel (Adewusi et al., 2012; Aldien et al., 2006). The
posture of the model applied to the steering wheel is close to the
extended arm posture, differing from the bent-arm posture in the test
with the handle. The diameter of the cylindrical handle for the hand-arm
model is 40 mm and the diameter of the steering wheel of the forklift is
about 25 mm. Although the maximal moments of the DIP and PIP joints
as a function of the cylinder diameter may reach the maximum at a
cylinder diameter of about 31 mm, the maximal MCP joint moment has
been found to increase with an increasing cylinder diameter (Wu et al.,
2009a,b), which however has not been considered in the current model.
These differences in the test postures, handle size and grip forces are
expected to cause discrepancies in the transmissibility spectra of the
hand-arm system between the model and measurements, similar to
previous findings (Marcotte et al., 2005; Aldien et al., 2006; Adewusi
et al., 2010). The weight of the accelerometer might affect the responses
measured on the skins, which may have also caused discrepancies seen
between the modelled and measured transmissibility spectra. Laser
vibrometers or miniatured accelerometers would be used in future
studies, particularly when measuring finger vibrations. In the current
study, light-weight tapes were used to secure the accelerometers and
their leads to skins without applying tightness to the skin, and the ac­
celerometers were fastened near the joints. Increased skin tightness has
been found to shift the transmissibility spectrum toward higher fre­
quencies (Xu et al., 2015), and fastening accelerometers at a location
near a joint can help minimize the effect of the fasten system on
measuring responses on skins (Adewusi et al., 2012). Moreover, more
subjects are needed to study the inter-subject variability in the experi­
mental results.
Since the hand-arm system has high degrees of freedom, compared
with the traditional FE models, a hybrid model as developed in this
paper has advantages including the convenience to adjust the angles of
the the finger and arm joints to achieve different arm and grip postures
for different analysis scenarios. Moreover, the muscle force of the hand
could be simulated by applying the moments (estimated based on
measured griping forces) to each joint taking advantage of the charac­
teristics of the multi-body model.
In summary, based on the anatomy and anthropometry of hands and
arms, a hybrid model combining the FE and multi-body models was
proposed to simulate the contact pressure of the hand gripping and the
vibration transmission of the hand-arm system. The active muscle force
was simulated by applying the moments to each joint when gripping the
handle. The passive contact pressure and transmitted vibration were
predicted with the FE method. The obtained results in good agreement
with the corresponding experimental data prove that the proposed
model accounting for the active force and the nonlinear properties of the
soft tissues is capable of predicting the vibration transmission of the
hand-arm system and can be applied in the specific engineering practice.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 88 (2022) 103258
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