Experimental analysis of vibration of chest wall

In the engineering field, machines are tested for health diagnosis through vibrational monitoring by studying the frequency content of said machines. By taking that same concept, it can be applied into the human health diagnosis by measuring the vibration of the human chest wall. This paper presents the experimental analysis of the human chest wall vibration on non-smokers, cigarette smokers, and electrical cigarette smokers. The aim of this study is to investigate the vibration measurements of the human chest wall of non-smokers, cigarette smokers, and electrical cigarette smokers in the hopes of benefiting future researchers in conducting human health diagnosis. The vibrational measurements are to be taken from 16 subjects (6 non-smokers, 5 cigarette smokers, and 5 electrical cigarette smokers) by using an accelerometer, a DAQ measurement hardware, a LabVIEW software for collecting data and a Matlab software for spectral analysis. The accelerometer will be secured by a trained doctor at two different locations of the chest wall; one directly above the left nipple and one directly below it. The raw signals will be presented in the time-domain, and will then be converted into the frequency domain through Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm. These spectral analyses include FFT analysis, Power Spectral Density (PSD) analysis, and Short-Time Fourier Transform analysis. The results for the measurements taken at above the left nipple showed no difference for all of the vibrational analyses, thus the author focused on the measurements taken from below the left nipple. It was found that the smokers show lower amplitude reading but higher frequency content based on the FFT and PSD analyses. It was noted that no difference can be seen through the STFT method. The vibration signals obtained from these subjects might give some insights to future researchers in conducting a human health diagnosis.