Human vibration monitoring system

Research has shown that operators of heavy equipment in the mining industry are subject to whole-body vibration exposure that exceeds ISO 2631-1 (1997) guidelines. In particular operators of haul trucks are at high risk. Consequently an initiative was made to determine a solution to reduce the vibration exposure operators of haul trucks experience. The result was the creation of a visual onboard monitoring system that indicated to the operator when they were experiencing dangerous levels of vibration. In operation, when the operator was prompted by the system, they would try to change their driving patterns to avoid higher levels of vibration so that at the end of the shift they were below the ISO 2631-1 (1997) limit. The research of this project was to determine if the system was effective or not based on field testing of the vibration system. The results demonstrated that the system could potentially reduce vibration. This type of system could have significant impacts on the mining industry by improving health and safety of operators with more field data and further research.