Abstract
The present study evaluated seven different handtrucks on the forces (average and peak) required to pull different loads up a flight of stairs. Both human subjects and a constant-velocity winch were used to pull the loads during the trials. The results showed that there were significant differences between the handtrucks in terms of the average and average-peak forces required to pull the loads. Differences in average force could be attributed to certain handtruck characteristics (e.g., wheel diameter), but no such discriminations could be made for average-peak force. The results also demonstrated that average and average-peak forces were negatively correlated, indicating that low forces of one kind (either average or average-peak) were generally, but not always, associated with high forces in the other. In general, none of the handtrucks evaluated here produced both low average and average-peak forces when pulling loads up stairs.
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