Simulation-Based Assessment of Workers' Muscle Fatigue and Its Impact on Construction Operations

AbstractConstruction workers are frequently exposed to excessive physical demands due to repetitive lifting and material handling while performing tasks. Consequently, many construction workers suffer from a significant level of muscle fatigue that may negatively impact a project’s performance. Thus, evaluating the level of muscle fatigue prior to work and implementing appropriate interventions to reduce physical demands will help to prevent adverse effects of workers’ fatigue on construction operations. Even though several research efforts have suggested methodologies to evaluate muscle fatigue, the extent to which workers’ muscle fatigue would affect construction performance has not yet been fully studied. To address this issue, a simulation-based framework is proposed to estimate physical demands and corresponding muscle fatigue, and thus to quantitatively evaluate the impact of muscle fatigue during construction operations. Specifically, physical demands from a planned operation modeled using discrete...