BS 7085:1989

A guide to safety aspects in the design of equipment and the conduct of experiments. It is concerned with whole body vibration and its purpose is to reduce the chance of the subject and other personnel being exposed to undue risk of injury arising from exposure to shock or vibration, or maloperation of the vibration equipment.

This British Standard provides guidance on safety aspects of the design of equipment and the conduct of experiments in which human test subjects¹⁾ are exposed to mechanical vibration and shock.

The guidance relates mainly to the design and operation of equipment for laboratory experiments. However, it could apply also to other situations in which subjects are exposed to mechanical vibration and shock. Clauses 3 and 8 respectively, concerned with the definition of magnitudes of exposure and the selection of subjects, are equally applicable to experiments in which the mechanical vibration or shock is generated in the course of field trials, e.g. by the passage of a vehicle over rough ground.

This standard is concerned with experiments in which subjects are exposed to whole-body mechanical vibration and shock. Local vibration is not within the scope of this standard but some of the general procedures may be applicable.

The experiments to which this standard is applicable include those performed to determine the response of subjects to mechanical vibration and shock stimuli. They also include those experiments in which mechanical vibration or shock are part of the environment in which other investigations are performed, and to experiments or tests to compare the attributes of equipment intended to alleviate the effects of mechanical vibration or shock on the user, e.g. tests to BS 4220.

NOTE The titles of the publications referred to in this standard are listed on the inside back cover.