Compound lever

Compound lever

Nonatmospheric Hazardous Conditions: The Role of Confined Energy

Published in Neil McManus, Safety and Health in Confined Spaces, 2018

One of the simplest mechanical devices is the lever (Walton 1968). The lever is a rigid piece, capable of turning about a point or fulcrum, by which force applied at one point is transmitted or modified at a second. That is, the lever amplifies force applied at a point. Small force applied through a large distance from the fulcrum produces the effect of a large force applied through a small distance. This effect (mechanical advantage) is fully exploited in machines. Mechanical advantage of force is the ratio of the forces balanced by the lever. Mechanical advantage of distance is the ratio of the distances at which the forces balance on the lever (Olivo and Olivo 1984). Grouping together several simple levers with linkages produces the compound lever. The compound lever provides the same mechanical advantage in a much shorter distance. Angled lever arms and complex designs can provide high mechanical advantage in a compact package.

CAD feature recognition as a means to prevent ergonomics issues during manual assembly tasks

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Journal Information

Published in Computer-Aided Design and Applications, 2018

Marco Marconi, Michele Germani, Claudio Favi, Roberto Raffaeli

The approach presents few limitations. Firstly, it is not able to consider complex compound lever/joint/pressure combinations, but only subsequent and independent actions of the upper limbs. Secondly, the nature of the Ergonomics DB is general and open to host new patterns and features, but it is incomplete and needs to be filled with other items. This aspect is part of the next research work.

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