Development and evaluation of attachable anti-vibration handle

Blueberry production has skyrocketed in the past two decades due to an exponential increase in consumer demand around the world. Hand harvesters are used, avoiding damage to the fruit and increasing harvesting efficiency multifold when compared with that of hand-picking. The downside of these hand harvesters is their high Hand Arm Vibration (HAV), which is very dangerous for the worker and can cause hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). The aim of this study is to propose a spring-based anti-vibration handle that can be attached to vibrating equipment (blueberry hand harvester). Four different parameters were measured for the developed spring-based handles: hand arm vibration, wrist posture, muscle activity, and subjective discomfort rating. Results have shown that the use of a spring-based handle can reduce HAV by 61.1%, which is within the exposure limit values (ELV) defined by the European Union.