Effect of hand arm vibration on operator during power weeder operation in paddy field

Abstract

India is the sixth biggest economy in the world where most of the people depend on the agricultural sector for their employment. The major crop in India is rice in which weeds are one of the foremost problems for reduction of yield. Among the weed control methods, the most efficient, less time consuming and eco-friendly method is mechanical weeding. It is done generally by power operated weeders. The power weeder is fitted with a motor which gives drives to the L type blade and weed is removed by the impact action of blade and soil. Because of all these actions, the farmers are subjected to very intense vibration which may cause different types of vibration disorders. So, to investigate this a study was conducted by selecting twenty numbers of subjects. To investigate the vibration transmitted to the subjects, an accelerometer was attached to the handle and the data was collected and analyzed. It was found that the overall weighted hand-arm vibration acceleration was found to be 6 m/s2 whereas average daily vibration exposure was 5.2 m/s2 which are greater than the exposure limiting value. This indicates that there is a chance of neurological injuries, vascular injuries and musculoskeletal injuries in hand. The vibrotactile sensitivity was found on the higher side which may results in white finger disease among the operator.