Muscle Fatigue Analysis During Welding Tasks Using sEMG and Recurrence Quantification Analysis
Abstract
This study is a quantitative investigation of the task and muscle activity related to welding through realtime surface electromyography (sEMG) to identify ways to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) related to welding. Six right-hand dominant participants simulated two different welding tasks to conduct research on 16 muscle groups for three hours. To analyze this data, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is used to detect muscle fatigue during the welding task. Average DET% values were calculated among all the participants to find out the determinism values of the first and last 10 min of the experiment for each muscle. The highest difference in DET% between the last 10 minutes and first 10 minutes was the left upper trapezius (39.7%). The next three highest differences were the right upper trapezius (39.5%), left medial gastrocnemius (32.7%), and right deltoid (27.5%). According to the subjective average values, the right deltoid was the muscle group fastest to fatigue at 40 minutes. In the future we hope to work to better identify and learn how to prevent muscle fatigue in welding workers by optimizing workstations and equipment and implementing new designs and processes.
Faculty Sponsors
Dr. Ali Keshavarz Panahi
Project Type
Event
Location
Alvin Shermany Library
Start Date
4-5-2019 1:00 PM
End Date
4-5-2019 5:00 PM
Muscle Fatigue Analysis During Welding Tasks Using sEMG and Recurrence Quantification Analysis
Alvin Shermany Library
This study is a quantitative investigation of the task and muscle activity related to welding through realtime surface electromyography (sEMG) to identify ways to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) related to welding. Six right-hand dominant participants simulated two different welding tasks to conduct research on 16 muscle groups for three hours. To analyze this data, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) is used to detect muscle fatigue during the welding task. Average DET% values were calculated among all the participants to find out the determinism values of the first and last 10 min of the experiment for each muscle. The highest difference in DET% between the last 10 minutes and first 10 minutes was the left upper trapezius (39.7%). The next three highest differences were the right upper trapezius (39.5%), left medial gastrocnemius (32.7%), and right deltoid (27.5%). According to the subjective average values, the right deltoid was the muscle group fastest to fatigue at 40 minutes. In the future we hope to work to better identify and learn how to prevent muscle fatigue in welding workers by optimizing workstations and equipment and implementing new designs and processes.
