Full Length Research Paper

Evaluation of human body comfortableness under vibrate condition by muscle oxygenation and surface electromyography (SEMG) parameter

Xiaoling LI¹ , Jun Hong¹*, Fang Wang², Tong Wu² and Xiang Zhang¹

¹School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, IL 710049, China.

²Institute of Industrial Design, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, IL 710072, China.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: xjtulxl@163.com.

Accepted 19 February, 2010

   Abstract

To efficiently evaluate the influences on human body comfortableness under different vibrative condition, the paper comprehensively applied the surface electromyography (SEMG) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technology and obtained the relationship between mean power frequency (MPF) and regional tissue oxygen saturation (rSO2) and acceleration, frequency, time and amplitude through experiments on the variations of human body SEMG and muscle oxygenation under vibrative condition; analyzed and compared rules of variations of partial electromyography of the biceps brachii muscle, erector spinae muscle, biceps femories and tissue blood oxygen saturation depending on the changes of vibration parameter. With the analysis of the subjective evaluation, the author proposed the evaluation methods of human body comfortableness under different vibrate condition by muscle oxygenation and SEMG parameter. The study, with a certain degree of universalized quality, not only provides a new referential ergonomic criterion for the man-machine interface design of important facilities like tank and aircrafts, but can also be applied in the design evaluation of transportation vehicles and the evaluation of comfortableness of work environment.

Key words: Vibration, comfortableness, biology, surface electromyography (SEMG), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), evaluation.