Ergonomic assessment of bar cutting process in construction

Venkatesh Balasubramanian and G. Swami Prasad

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2006, vol. 1, issue 3, 321-332

Abstract: Bar cutting involves manual cutting of reinforcement bars to specific dimensions. Repetitive nature and awkward postures adopted during bar cutting leads to musculoskeletal disorders. RULA was performed to evaluate muscle force and postures. Grand RULA score was found to be 7. Pain was graded on a scale of 0 to 5 on RBG pain scale (RBGPS). Questionnaire study showed that pain in forearm and shoulders were the most common. Good correlation (r² = 0.912) was observed between RBGPS and RULA scores. Optimisation of lift frequency and hammer weight, along with intervention devices reduces RULA score to 3.

Keywords: bar cutting; construction industry; occupational safety; RBG pain scale; RULA; upper extremity disorder; reinforcement bars; musculoskeletal disorders; muscle force; posture; ergonomics; human factors; lift frequency; hammer weight; intervention devices; repetitive work. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=9798 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijisen:v:1:y:2006:i:3:p:321-332

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().