posted on 2014-01-07, 15:02authored byNeil Mansfield, Jamie Mackrill, Andrew N. Rimell, Simon J. MacMull
Occupants of automobiles experience discomfort after long drives, irrespective of how well designed a seat might be. Previous studies of discomfort during driving have focused either on the seat shape and materials (“static” properties), long-term discomfort (“fatigue” properties), or dynamics (“vibration” properties). These factors have previously not been considered together. This paper reports three studies with objectives to define and test a model for describing long-term discomfort from vibration. Study 1 was an independent measures laboratory trial using an automobile seat, which lasted 80 minutes; Study 2 was a repeated measures laboratory trial using a rail passenger seat, which lasted 60 minutes; Study 3 was a repeated measures field trial in a people carrier automobile, which involved 70 minutes of travelling. The findings showed that discomfort accrues with time but that more discomfort is experienced when subjects are also exposed to whole-body vibration. Exposure to whole-body vibration accelerates development of discomfort. The relationship between the reported discomfort, the vibration magnitude, and the exposure time can be described using a multifactorial linear model. It is concluded that ignoring parts of the multi-factorial model (i.e., static, dynamic, or temporal factors) will compromise understanding of discomfort in context.
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MANSFIELD, N.J. ... et al, 2014. Combined effects of long-term sitting and whole-body vibration on discomfort onset for vehicle occupants. ISRN Automotive Engineering, 2014, Article ID 852607.
This article was published in the journal ISRN Automotive Engineering, it is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.