Ergonomically design of manually operated farm equipment for central Agro-Climatic Zone of Uttar Pradesh

Engineering anthropometry is the effort to apply such data to equipment, workplace and clothing design to enhance the efficiency, safety and comfort of the operator. The data were collected from Central Uttar Pradesh, keeping into consideration the requirements of hand tools and machines, anthropometric measurement of the identified 79 body dimensions and 16 strength parameters of 350 Male and 250 female farm workers have been done. The anthropometric data are used to determine the size and shape of handles, height of work surfaces and the space in which an operator has to work. A typical hand tool/equipment consists of the fictional part, handle and a connecting part. The design of the handle depends on the mode of operation and amount of effort required, anthropometric data of working population, handle material etc. It is not enough, as a rule, to design a work place to suit an average person. Since, it is not usually possible to design work place to suit the tallest or shortest workers, one has to be content by meeting the requirement of the majority i.e. 90% of the population (i.e. people having values between 5ᵗʰ and 95ᵗʰ percentile for the particular dimensions.). While operating the thresher, so that the maximum permissible height for feeding chute should be decided considering the 5ᵗʰ percentile value of acromion height and from this data its value is 129.4 cm. For better operation and more human comfort a proper handle height for these equipments will be between 63.7 to 95.8 cm with 63.7 cm being the 5ᵗʰ percentile value for metacarpal height and 95.8 cm being the 5ᵗʰ percentile of elbow height from recorded value of body dimensions the mean value, standard deviation, 5ᵗʰ and 95ᵗʰ percentile values were computed and recorded for male and female subjects, respectively.