Overview

The operation of machinery may cause mechanical vibration of the hand-arm system of the operator which may affect the operator's well-being, efficiency and, under certain circumstances, the health and safety of the operator. The general requirements for measuring and evaluating the effects of vibrations on the hand-arm system are specified in DIN EN ISO 5349-1.
As a supplement to the aforementioned standard, this standard is intended to provide practical guidance on the correct performance of measurements and the development of an effective procedure for measuring hand-arm vibrations at the workplace. For this purpose, this standard describes representative vibration measurements and determination of the daily exposure time of each operation in order to be able to calculate the 8-h energy-equivalent vibration total value (the daily vibration exposure). The standard also provides a means to determine the relevant operations which should be taken into account when determining the vibration exposure. Determination of the vibration exposure is solely based on the measurement of vibration magnitude at the grip zones or handles of the various hand-held machines and the respective exposure time. Additional factors, such as gripping and feed forces applied by the operator, the posture of the hand and arm, the direction of the vibration and the environmental conditions, etcetera, are not taken into consideration.
The use of the strategy described here will lead to a realistic picture of the daily exposure of the operator at the workplace and of the relevant uncertainties. The evaluation of vibration exposure can be broken up into a number of distinct stages:
1. identifying a series of discrete operations which make up the subject's normal working pattern;
2. selection of operations to be measured;
3. measuring the r.m.s. acceleration value for each selected operation;
4. evaluation of the typical daily exposure time for each operation identified;
5. calculating the 8-h energy-equivalent vibration total value (daily vibration exposure).
This Amendment was thought to be necessary to bring the machines listed as examples into line with those dealt with in the revised version of DIN EN ISO 22867 and in the DIN EN ISO 28927 standards series. As a consequence, it became necessary to define the preferred measurement locations (locations of accelerometers) on the illustrated machines as being as close as possible to the hand between the thumb and the index finger, where an operator normally holds the machine. For the measurement locations, the orientation of the axes X, Y and Z as well as preferred and alternative measurement locations for the illustrated machines are shown for the first time.
The International Standard on which this German Standard is based and its International Amendment has been prepared by ISO/TC 108/SC 4 "Human exposure to mechanical vibration and shock" in collaboration with CEN/TC 231 "Mechanical vibration and shock". CEN published these international documents unchanged as a European Standard and European Amendment. For publication of the German Standard, the International/European Amendment was incorporated into the text. The responsible German committee is subcommittee NA 001-03-07-02 UA "Hand-arm vibrations" in Working Committee NA 001-03-07 AA "Schwingungseinwirkung auf den Menschen" ("Human exposure to vibration").

Document: references other documents

Document: referenced in other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 001-03-12 AA - Human exposure to vibration - Hand-transmitted vibration  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 231 - Mechanical vibration and shock