3-D Mechanical Impedances Distributed at the Fingers and Palm of the Hand

Vibration biodynamics of the hand-arm system is one of the foundations for understanding vibration-induced discomfort, injuries, and disorders. One of the approaches to the study of biodynamics is to examine the driving-point biodynamic response of the system. The vast majority of reported studies assumed vibration excitation at a single point on the handle-hand interface. This assumption is acceptable for the analyses of many tools when the overall response is of concern. According to Saint-Venant's principle (Toupin, 1965), this assumption may also be acceptable for the analyses of the dynamic loads in the anns, but it is not acceptable when responses in the vicinity of contact substructures, especially in the fingers, are of concern. While some studies on responses distributed at the fingers and palm of the hand along the forearm direction have been reported (Dong et al., 2005), little information on the distributed responses in the other directions is available. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the driving-point biodynamic responses distributed at the fingers and palm of the hand in three orthogonal directions (X sub(h), y sub(h), and z sub(h)).