A new muscle fatigue and recovery model and its ergonomics application in human simulation

Liang Ma (1) , Damien Chablat (1) , Fouad Bennis (1) , Wei Zhang (2) , François Guillaume (3)

1 IRCCyN - Institut de Recherche en Communications et en Cybernétique de Nantes
2 DIE - Dept. Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University
3 EADS IW - EADS Innovation Works [Suresnes]

Although automatic techniques have been employed in manufacturing industries to increase productivity and efficiency, there are still lots of manual handling jobs, especially for assembly and maintenance jobs. In these jobs, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are one of the major health problems due to overload and cumulative physical fatigue. With combination of conventional posture analysis techniques, digital human modelling and simulation (DHM) techniques have been developed and commercialized to evaluate the potential physical exposures. However, those ergonomics analysis tools are mainly based on posture analysis techniques, and until now there is still no fatigue index available in the commercial software to evaluate the physical fatigue easily and quickly. In this paper, a new muscle fatigue and recovery model is proposed and extended to evaluate joint fatigue level in manual handling jobs. A special application case is described and analyzed by digital human simulation technique.

Mots clés: Digital human modelling; human simulation; muscle fatigue and recovery model; physical fatigue evaluation; objective work evaluation; ergonomics analysis

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]

Liang Ma, Damien Chablat, Fouad Bennis, Wei Zhang, François Guillaume. A new muscle fatigue and recovery model and its ergonomics application in human simulation. IDMME - Virtual Concept, Oct 2008, Beijing, China. pp.1-10. ⟨hal-00350663⟩