Ergonomic studies on an Agricultural Foot Sprayer
The increased use of hybrid seeds, fertilizer and irrigation water in Indian agriculture has resulted in higher incidence of pest attacks and thus necessitates the use of pesticides. Pesticides are indispensable for getting high crop yields, protecting forests and horticultural crops, ensuring public and animal health, safeguarding agricultural commodities in stores and house hold articles etc. by controlling and preventing the various pests involved. Their use has been progressively increasing with the growing awareness. The use of the plant protection equipments is becoming a necessity for the mankind, for protection of their crops and also to kill the pests damaging the crop. In order to obtain the maximum returns from their use, it is necessary to employ efficient machinery for their application. In recent years there have been many developments in the equipments for pesticides application and various kinds of modern pesticides application machines are now available. These machines have better efficiency as well as reduced labour requirement and production costs. In India foot sprayers current population is about 0.6 million. Presently about 10 firms are manufacturing this sprayer located in Gujarat, Maharastra, Punjab and Haryana states of India. (Shrimali and Mathur, 2004). The accelerated use of the foot sprayer calls for its quality and adaptability to the operator based on the operators physiology and ergonomic considerations. Physiology and discomfort plays an important role in the area of designing and modification of agricultural machinery. It is concerned with the ways of designing machine, operation and work environment to match the human capacity, and limitations. Its goal includes increase in the efficiency with which the machine can be operated, improving design, reducing the efforts needed to operate machines, increasing human comfort, increasing safety and decreasing accidents. Physiological and discomfort parameters were evaluated for male users in terms of Heart arte (HR), Oxygen consumption rate (OCR), Energy expenditure rate (EER), Body Part discomfort Score (BPDS) and Over all discomfort rating (ODR) during the operation of an agricultural foot sprayer. During pedaling operation of the sprayer mean values of HR, increase in heart rate (△HR), OCR, increase in oxygen consumption rate (△OCR), EER, ODR, and BPDS ranged from 98.17 to 100.67 beats /min, 23.6 to 27.3 beats/min, 0.48 to 0.88 l/min., 0.32 to 0.48 l/min, 3.18 to 3.48 kcal/min, 6.4 to 7.4 and 57.3 to 59.3 respectively. For spraying operation with lance mean HR, △HR, OCR,△OCR, EER, ODR, and BPDS ranged from 85.7 to 92.0 beats /min, 12.3 to 14.6 beats/min, 0.29 to 0.42 l/min, 0.11 to 0.24 l/min, 1.95 to 2.49 kcal/min, 3.74 to 5.56 and 33.24 to 46.62 respectively. The mean HR,△HR, mean OCR,△OCR, EER, BPDS and ODR of the subjects were found to be less for lance operation as compared to the corresponding values during pedaling operation for spraying. Spraying with an agricultural foot sprayer was rated light, considering pedaling, which is a primary operation during spraying.
Hemant Shrimali Ravi Mathur L.P. Giteand Abhay Kumar Mehta
Udaipur and Indian Society of Ergonomics MPUAT, Udaipur and Indian Society of Ergonomics
国际会议
17th World Congress on Ergonomics(第十七届国际人类工效学大会)
北京
英文
1-4
2009-08-09（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）