Attenuation of Hand-Transmitted Vibration Application on Weed Wacker

Many syndrome and disorders have been reported by worker due to long time use of the hand tools. These disorders have been collected by the International Standard Organization (ISO) to help workers maintain safe operation. Anti-vibration gloves have been proposed to attenuate vibrations that transfer from hand tools to the human body, but these gloves are not effective for this purpose. Here we report experimental work and calculations done on the weed wacker to devise a method to attenuate the vibration of this hand tools. An absorber was fabricated by 3D printing and installed on the shaft between the engine and the handle. The location of the absorber on the shaft was investigated to find the optimum location of vibrational attenuation. Because the absorber is designed as a ring, it can absorb the vibration in all three directions. The optimized absorber reduced vibration by about 75% compared to the vibration of weed wacker without an absorber. Our results also indicate that the location of the absorber is very important to optimize its effectiveness. We found that the best position is close to the engine and away from the handle.