A new muscle fatigue and recovery model and its ergonomics application in human simulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel muscle fatigue and recovery model integrated into digital human simulation to better assess physical fatigue in manual handling jobs, addressing a gap in existing ergonomic analysis tools.

Contribution

The paper presents a new muscle fatigue and recovery model that can evaluate joint fatigue levels, enhancing digital human simulation for ergonomic assessments.

Findings

Model effectively evaluates joint fatigue levels.

Application case demonstrates model's practical utility.

Addresses lack of fatigue indices in commercial ergonomic tools.

Abstract

Although automatic techniques have been employed in manufacturing industries to increase productivity and efficiency, there are still lots of manual handling jobs, especially for assembly and maintenance jobs. In these jobs, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are one of the major health problems due to overload and cumulative physical fatigue. With combination of conventional posture analysis techniques, digital human modelling and simulation (DHM) techniques have been developed and commercialized to evaluate the potential physical exposures. However, those ergonomics analysis tools are mainly based on posture analysis techniques, and until now there is still no fatigue index available in the commercial software to evaluate the physical fatigue easily and quickly. In this paper, a new muscle fatigue and recovery model is proposed and extended to evaluate joint fatigue level in manual handling jobs. A special application case is described and analyzed by digital human simulation technique.