Mechanical impedances distributed at the fingers and palm of the human hand in three orthogonal directions

The objective of this study is to investigate the basic characteristics of the three axis mechanical impedances distributed at the fingers and palm of the hand subjected to vibrations along three orthogonal directions (xh, yh, and zh). Seven subjects participated in the experiment on a novel three-dimensional (3-D) hand–arm vibration test system equipped with a 3-D instrumented handle. The total impedance of the entire hand–arm system was obtained by performing a sum of the distributed impedances. Two major resonances were observed in the impedance data in each direction. For the hand forces (30 N grip and 50 N push) and body postures applied in this study, the first resonance was in the range of 20–40 Hz, and it was primarily observed in the impedance at the palm. The second resonance was generally observed in the impedance at the fingers, while the resonance frequency varied greatly with the subject and vibration direction, ranging from 100 to 200 Hz in the xh direction, 60 to 120 Hz in the yh direction, and 160 to 300 Hz in the zh direction. The impedance at the palm was greater than that at the fingers below a certain frequency in the range of 50–100 Hz, depending on the vibration direction. At higher frequencies, however, the impedance magnitude at the fingers either approached or exceeded that at the palm. The impedance in the zh direction was generally higher than those in the other directions, but it became comparable with that in the xh direction at frequencies above 250 Hz, while the impedance in the yh direction was the lowest. The frequency dependencies of the vibration power absorptions for the entire hand–arm system in the three directions were different, but their basic trends were similar to that of the frequency weighting defined in the current ISO standard. The implications of the results are discussed.