| Description |
ix, 79 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm + 1 DVD. |
| Summary |
"U.S. Army bridge crew soldiers perform tough manual material handling (MMH) tasks during the assembly of a Medium Girder Bridge (MGB). The bridge parts are very heavy and are manually lifted from pallets, carried to the construction site and assembled with other bridge parts. An energy expenditure study on the soldiers handling the bridge parts revealed that the energy expenditure rate of the soldiers exceeds the NIOSH prescribed safety limit of 3.5 Kcal/min. This leads to high risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The study deals with modifying the first redesign of mechanical assists for medium girder bridge (MGB) and studying the energy expended by soldiers during MGB construction while using the modified assists and comparing it to the energy expended by soldiers while using the current assists. The first redesign required minor modification to improve usability and performance. An effort was put to address these issues. The approach for this research involved redesign based on a field test performed with the first redesigned assists and observation of the bridge building process using recorded video tapes. The thesis research involved design modifications, prototype manufacturing and energy expenditure study using Energy Expenditure Prediction Program (EEPP). The EEPP study revealed that the redesigned mechanical assists reduced the average energy expenditure rate of soldiers by 33%. The average team energy expenditure was reduced by 50%"--Abstract, leaf iii. |
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