  In ergonomics and biomechanics, muscle fatigue models based on maximum
endurance time (MET) models are often used to integrate fatigue effect into
ergonomic and biomechanical application. However, due to the empirical
principle of those MET models, the disadvantages of this method are: 1) the MET
models cannot reveal the muscle physiology background very well; 2) there is no
general formation for those MET models to predict MET. In this paper, a
theoretical MET model is extended from a simple muscle fatigue model with
consideration of the external load and maximum voluntary contraction in passive
static exertion cases. The universal availability of the extended MET model is
analyzed in comparison to 24 existing empirical MET models. Using mathematical
regression method, 21 of the 24 MET models have intraclass correlations over
0.9, which means the extended MET model could replace the existing MET models
in a general and computationally efficient way. In addition, an important
parameter, fatigability (or fatigue resistance) of different muscle groups,
could be calculated via the mathematical regression approach. Its mean value
and its standard deviation are useful for predicting MET values of a given
population during static operations. The possible reasons influencing the
fatigue resistance were classified and discussed, and it is still a very
challenging work to find out the quantitative relationship between the fatigue
resistance and the influencing factors.
