• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.371-378
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• 2014

Manual materials handling tasks are the main risk factors for the work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Many assistant tools for manual materials handling are being used in various kind of industries. One of them is a 4-wheeled cart which is widely used in manufacturing factories, hospitals, etc. The major force required to control the 4-wheeled cart is pushing and pulling. There are two types of handles being used for the 4-wheeled cart : vertical type (two vertical handles), and horizontal type (one horizontal handle). This study tried to investigate the pushing forces and subjective discomforts (hand/writst, shoulder, low back, and overall) of the two handle types with different handle height and distance conditions. Twelve healthy male students (mean age = 23.4 years) participated in the experiment. The independent variables were handle angle (horizontal, vertical), handle height (low, medium, high), and handle distance (narrow, medium, wide). The full factorial design was used for the experiment and the maximum pushing forces were measured in 18 different conditions ($2{\times}3{\times}3$). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure was conducted to test the effects of the independent variables on the pushing force and discomfort levels. Handle height and angle were found to be the critical design factors that affect the maximal pushing forces and subjective discomfort. In the middle height, subjects exerted higher pushing forces, and experience lower discomfort levels compared to the high, and low height. There was no statistical influence of the handle distance to the pushing forces and subjective discomfort levels. It was found out that the effects of the handle angle (horizontal and vertical) on both pushing force and subjective discomfort were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The vertical handle revealed higher pushing force and lower discomfort level than the horizontal handle. The reason for that was thought to be the different postures of the hand when grasping the handles. The horizontal handle induced pronaton of the hand and made hand posture more deviated from the neutral position.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.3-18
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• 1989

Two sets of isometric pushing and pulling experiments were performed by two male and two female susbjects. One set of experiments involoved isometric hand pushing and pulling in a standing erect posture, in which the thigh and pelvic regions of the subjects were braced to achieve the greatest strength. Another set of experiments involved isometric hand pushing and pulling in a free posture, in which the subjects elected their preferred postures to attain the largest strength at each of thred handle heights (low-66cm ; mid-109cm ; and high-152cm). It was shown from isometric pushing and pulling experiments in a standing erect poture that the rectus abdominis and the erector spinae muscles were acting as an antagonistic pair with respect to the L5/S1 intervertebral joint, and that the integrated EMG and the muscle force were linearly related. However, the relationships between the integrated EMG and the muscle force during isometric pushing and pulling in a free posture were not well-correlated. It is proposed that the integrated EMG results should be carefully interpreted for tasks of pushing and pulling at various handle heights.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.307-313
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• 2020

Background: Many tasks in industrial and health care setting are involved with pushing and pulling tasks up or down on a ramp. An efficient method of moving cart which reduces the risk of low back pain should be concerned. This study aimed to investigate the effects of handling types (HTs) and slope on lumbar spinal load during moving a cart on a ramp. We conducted a 2 × 2 × 4 factorial design with three main factors: 2 HTs, 2 handling directions of moving a cart and 4 degrees of ramp slope. Methods: Thirty healthy male workers performed 14 tasks consist of moving a cart up and down on the ramp of 0°, 10°, 15°, and 20° degrees with pushing and pulling methods. Joint angles from a 3D motion capture system combined with subject height, body weight, and hand forces were used to calculate the spinal load by the 3DSSPP program. Results: Our results showed significant effect of HT, handling directions and slope on compression and shear force of the lumbar spine (p < 0.001). When the ramp gradient increased, the L4/5 compression forces increased in both pushing and pulling (p < 0.001) Shear forces increased in pulling and decreased in pushing in all tasks. At high slopes, pulling generated more compression and shear forces than that of pushing (p < 0.01). Conclusion: Using the appropriate technique of moving a cart on the ramp can reduce the risk of high spinal load, and the pushing is therefore recommended for moving a cart up/down on ramp gradients.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.1778-1781
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• 1997

The coke oven plant on a steel works has not, in the past, been regarded as a prime user of modern instrument technology. The reason for this perception may be due to the fact that the basic design of the coke battery has been changed little over the years. The recording and analysis of oven pushing force on a routine basis is seen as a means of monitoring plant operation. A torque sensor is set up at the shaft of the rotor for measuring pushing force. Pushing force data which is communicated form torque sensor to staor by telemetry method are shown on MMI(Man-Machine Interface) screen and stored in the database automatically. Perhaps the most important feature is that is allows a problem oven to be identified at an early stage and for corrective action to be taken before it develops into a refusal to push. In this way the mechanical loads imposed on the battery structlure can be held to a necessary minimum, so helping to prolong its service life.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.671-674
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• 2000

A children's electric shock accidents have broken out because children can easily insert sharp things in 220V receptacle holes. As the test result of pushing force, children's pushing force was about 2-4kg and the pushing force of sharp things was less than 2kg. Therefore, it is reason for electric shock that children's pushing force is large than pushing force of sharp things. We have measured insulation resistance for the receptacles of five companies during 50 weeks in humid condition. As these results, Insulation resistance for the receptacles of J. Co. had rapidly decreased with lapse of time. As the result for investigating the surface of receptacle by SEM and EDX, Al, Fe and Br, which weren't discovered at original form, were produced. Therefore, the receptacles of J. Co. should be the improved in the quality of insulating material because insulation resistance can be decreased in humid environment

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.3-9
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• 1982

This study demonstrates that certain personal and task factors can be modelled to predict slip potential as well as back loadings durings dynamic pushing and pulling tasks. Such tasks are com- mon to many manual material handling jobs in industry and the results of this work will hopefully be of use in improved job design. The objective of this research is to formulate and validate a dynamic biomechanical model of pushing and pulling a cart. For pushing and pulling tasks, the model can : (1) estimate foot forces for given hand forces, and (2) estimate tors muscle and vertabral column loadings. In order to formulate and validate the model, experiments involving pushing and pulling of a cart were performed. These experiments produced data of the following type : (1) dynamic forces on the feet, (2) hand forces required to move the cart, (3) body motions as functions of various cart motion and (4) back muscle actions. The model was validated using three different methods; precision was tested using correlation between predicted and measured results, accuracy using standard error between of predicted and measured results, and intuitive comparison of predicted results using sensitivity analyses.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.123-129
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• 2013

Among various manual materials handling tasks, pushing/pulling was known to be one of the risk factors for the low back and shoulder musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). This study was conducted to find out an optimal solution set of the handle height and distance for 4-wheel cart with two vertical handles. Ten male college students participated in the pushing force measurement experiment. The face-centered cube design, one of the central composite designs, was applied for the experiment, and the isometric voluntary pushing force was measured in 9 treatment conditions. The second order response surface model was predicted by using the pushing strength as a response variable, and the handle height and distance as independent factors. According to the 2nd order response model, the handle height and distance showed nonlinear relationship with the isometric pushing strength. To maximize the 2nd order response model (pushing force), the handle height and distance were optimized. The optimal handle height was 'xyphoid process height - stature', and the optimal handle distance was '$1.25{\times}shoulder$ width'. When calculated using the anthropometric data of the subjects of this study, the optimal handle height was $115.4{\pm}3.4$ cm, slightly higher than the elbow height, and the handle distance was $52.9{\pm}2.3$ cm.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.4 s.48
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• pp.763-776
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• 1994

Recent studies reveal that grip forces during the hand-arm vibration are most significant for the genesis of vibration-induced white linger syndrome. Therefore, exerted grip forces and skin temperatures of fingers were regarded as dependent variables in experiments and the effects of grip temperature, noise, pushing force, vibration and the combined effect of vibration and pushing force were studied. The objectives of the present study were, first, to varify and compare the changes of grip force affected by grip temperature, noise, pushing force, vibration and the combined effect of vibration and pushing force and, second, to observe the reaction of finger skin temperature affected by above factors. Forty-six healthy male students ($25.07{\pm}2.85$) participated in five systematically permuted trials, which endured 4 minutes each other. Experiments were executed in a special chamber with an air temperature of 21C. In each experiments, the subjects were exposed to five experiment types: (1) grip force of 25N only, (2) pushing force of 50N, (3) acceleration of vibration $7.1m/sec^2(z-direction)$, (4) pink noise of 95 dB (A) and (5) combination of pushing force 50N and acceleration of vibration $7.1m/sec^2$. A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the grip force to test whether it was affected by noise, pushing force, vibration and pushing force. The present results show that vibration was significantly related to the increase of grip force, but the other factors, such as pushing force, noise and grip temperature had no signigicant influence on the increase of grip force, and that the reaction of finger skin temperature were significantly affected by the skin temperature at start of experiment and grip temperature, not grip force and other experimental conditions. Therefore, we suggest that the management for decreasing the grip force is meaningful to prevent the occurrence of Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS).

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.413-423
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• 2016

Objective:The aims of this study are to understand the effects of task (pushing, pulling, and clockwise and counter clockwise twisting) direction on the maximal output and their grip forces and to explore the relationship between the maximal output and the grip forces. Background: Knowing the normative maximal grip force is not enough to design a good hand tool. The industrial designers should understand the required grip forces in various motions toward a specific direction to make an effective and efficient hand tool. Method: Eighteen healthy volunteers participated in the series of isometric maximal output force tests. A custom-made force measuring equipment collected the output and the grip forces for three seconds. Force measurements along the vertical, coronal and sagittal axes were randomly repeated three times. Results: The pulling was strongest and the pushing was weakest in all directions. The effect of motion on the output forces varied in different directions. The corresponding grip force increased in the order of pushing, pulling, clockwise twisting, and counter clockwise twisting in all directions. The maximal output and their grip forces were highly correlated but the relationship was affected by motion and direction. The regression coefficient was greatest in pulling and smallest in clockwise twisting. Conclusion: The effect of motion on the output forces varied in different directions. The maximal output and their grip forces were correlated but the relationship was affected by motion and direction. Application: Findings of this study can be valuable information for industrial designers to develop more productive hand tools and work stations to help preventing the musculoskeletal disorders at work.

• Proceeding of EDISON Challenge
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• 2015.03a
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• pp.496-499
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• 2015

The objective of the study is to develop selfie sticks to enhance portability and prevent error of pushing mobile phone button. The main target of selfie sticks is women and the size of selfie sticks is too big to put it in their bag. Also when people put mobile phone in a selfie stick, people push its button easily. Sometimes mobile phone is turned off or the volume is controlled because of pushing its button. The researcher focused on designing a solution that enhances portability and preventing error of pushing the button. The researcher understood structure of selfie stick. It consists of a mobile phone supporter and a length adjuster. The researcher designed the mobile phone supporter for enhancing portability and the length adjuster for preventing to push the mobile phone. The researcher designed a part which connects a mobile phone supporter with a length adjuster and made selfie stick fold. Also, sponges are partly put on the mobile supporter. It can reduce situation of pushing the mobile phone button. The selfie stick design from the study has an opportunity to distinguish using the product and carrying it and have people use the selfie stick conveniently.