Analysis of the Contact Interactions Between Fingertips and Objects with Different Surface Curvatures

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dong, Ren G. ; Wu, John Z.
• Description:
  Previous experimental observations indicated that the contact interactions between finger and tool handle interfere with the grasp stability, affecting the comfort and manipulations of handheld tools. From a biomechanical point of view, the curvature of the contact surface should affect the contact pressure and contact area, and thereby the comfort and manipulations of hand tools. The current authors analysed, via a finite element model, the contact interactions between fingertips and objects with different curvatures. The effects of the curvature on the contact stiffness, fingertip deformations, contact pressure distributions, and stress/strain distributions within the soft tissues were analysed. The simulation results indicated that the curvature of the contact interface influences the contact characteristics significantly. For a given contact force, the contact area and the contact stiffness increase but the contact pressure and the fingertip deformation decrease with the decrease of the contact surface curvature. The present simulation results will be useful for ergonomic designers in their aim to improve the design of tool handles. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Biomechanical Phenomena Ergonomics Musculoskeletal System Occupational Health Safety Software
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Computer Simulations Biomechanical-modeling Biomechanics Computer-models Fingertip Finite Element Analysis Grasp Hand-injuries Hand-tools Models Simulation-methods Soft Tissue Mechanics Surface-properties Tools

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• ISSN:
  0954-4119
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  HELD - Health Effects Laboratory Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  89-103
• Volume:
  219
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20026772
• Citation:
  Proc Inst Mech Eng H 2005 Mar; 219(2):89-103
• Email:
  jwu@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2005
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of Engineering in Medicine
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:225fd832295c2ab373def21fc417310ab2ab4d78c2b898405fee2baf191974f5d48f54d1b2eb9b3685c51cffce4027a4499abcf1b4b394d6372d20fbb675c119
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/197379/cdc_197379_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.03 MB ]