Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
2
Vibration Transmissibility of Various Seat Occupants’ Body Parts – A Field Test
METHODOLOGY
The vehicle used is a popular Malaysian made compact car. Subjects were seated
on the front passenger seat. The test were carried out on smooth and paved road
in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Speeds were constant at 20, 40 and 80 km/h for smooth
road and 20, 30 and 50 km/h for pave road. The same driver drove the car to
minimize variability of driving condition for each test while subject occupied the
front passenger seat. The seat-to-various body parts transmissibility was
measured from five locations. There were single axis accelerometers at the upper-
back, lower-back, seat-buttock interface and right thigh attached to Velcro straps.
There was also one each accelerometers for x-, y- and z-axis on the seat floor
beneath the subject. One unit of tri-axial accelerometer was attached to a head-
strap at the forehead area. Figure 1 and Figure 2 depict how the accelerometers
were affixed onto the subject and its various locations. The measurement devices
used were Bruel & Kjaer portable and multi-channel PULSE type 3560D and
Bruel & Kjaer isotron accelerometer model 751-100. The measurement software
was also Bruel & Kjaer Pulse Labshop. The accelerometers were calibrated using
the Bruel & Kjaer calibration exciter type 4294. The vibrations were recorded in
the bandwidth 0-40 Hz of about 0.06m/s2 weighted r.m.s. minimum to 0.5 m/s2
weighted r.m.s. maximum in three axes.
(b
(a)
)
FIGURE 1 (a) Subject seated in no backrest no headrest position during in vehicle
experiment, (b) the front passenger and driver seats without sitter.
FIGURE 2 A schematic drawing showing the positions of the accelerometers and photos
of accelerometers attached at the forehead, thigh and at the back (clockwise).
3
M. J. M. Nor et al.
Subjects
There were 11 subjects participated as the seat occupants in the study. Subjects
anthropometrical details are given in Table 1. Measurement for each subject was
recorded in about 20 seconds each in various conditions as shown in Table 2.
Subjects’ permission was given in the form of letter of consents after they were
briefed prior to the test. Each test took about 1-2 hour to complete. The
recordings were usually carried out in between 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. to avoid
busy traffic.
Smooth
Paved road
Back condition road
(km/h)
(km/h)
Headrest and backrest (HB)
No headrest and backrest (NHB) 20 30 50 20 40 80
No headrest and no backrest (NHNB)
4
Vibration Transmissibility of Various Seat Occupants’ Body Parts – A Field Test
/m/s 2 )
4 Heavyberat
3 Subjek
Transmissibility (m/s2/m/s2)
subject
2
3
Transmissibility (m/s
2 Light ringan
Subjek
subject
2
1
1
0 0
1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36
From the results, it was found out that peak frequencies were not significantly
affected by the vehicle’s speed and road conditions tested in this study. Median
data dispersions could be observed in all cases between 1-13Hz only. Only few
cases showed some significant differences between the different speeds. Among
others were NHB head x-axis and head z-axis with both data showed p-value
≤0.1 before its peak resonance frequencies (1-8Hz) (refer Figure 4). Another two
occurrences were for HB and NHNB lower back with p-values ≤0.1 as well.
Although data from Qiu and Griffin (2003) could show significant effects from
different magnitudes of vibration, those studies were carried out in the laboratory
where the magnitudes used were between 0.50 to 1.95 ms-2 r.m.s.. Whereas this
study were carried out in the field and the difference between one speed to
another either on the same road or not were not so obvious.
5
M. J. M. Nor et al.
15 15 8 20
Head Y
Transmissibility ms-2/ms-2
Head Y
(HB) Head Y 40
(NHB) 6
10 10 (NHNB)
80
4
20p
5 5
2 30p
0 0 0 50p
1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36
5 4 2 20
HeadZ HeadZ HeadZ
4 (HB) (NHB) (NHNB) 40
3
80
3
2 1 20p
2
30p
1 1
50p
0 0 0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37
Frequency (Hz)
FIGURE 4 Median transmissibilities for HB, NHB and NHNB at head-x, head-y
and head-z for every road conditions and speeds.
According to Paddan & Griffin (1998), motions other than the z-direction are
vulnerable to the effects of noises (e.g., motions at the head due to voluntary
movements and not due to the seat vibration). The results showed that HB peak
frequency for fore-aft motion was lower than NHB and NHNB peak frequencies.
Meanwhile, HB vertical and lateral motions produced slightly higher peak
frequencies than NHB and NHNB motions of the same directions. Messenger and
Griffin (1989) found that, when sitting erect without a backrest, a reduction in
seat-to-head transmissibility at frequencies above 6Hz was associated with either
(i) posterior tilting of the pelvis, flattening the lumbar curve and inclining the
upper back forward, or (ii) anterior tilting of the pelvis and forward inclination of
the whole back. They concluded that ‘an anatomically correct sitting posture’
would tend to increase the transmission of vibration to the head at higher
frequencies but minimize transmissibility at low frequencies (Griffin 1990).
6
Vibration Transmissibility of Various Seat Occupants’ Body Parts – A Field Test
CONCLUSIONS
From the study, it is shown that among the six locations, seat-to-head-x
transmissibility was the highest. The peak frequencies for all six locations were
between 0-12Hz. However, for field test only vertical directions variables proved
to be excellent linear system which showed high value of coherency (0.7
onwards). Vibration magnitudes as a result of six speeds on two types of road
conditions did not revealed any significant differences in peak frequencies. For
both lateral and fore aft directions, there were large increases of amplitude when
the head and back was not supported as compared to supported back and head
conditions.
REFERENCES
7
M. J. M. Nor et al.
Messenger, A.J. & Griffin, M.J. 1989. Effects of anthropometric and postural
variables on the transmission of whole-body vertical vibration from seat-
to-head. Southampton: Institute of Sound and Vibration Research,
University of Southampton
Nelisse, H., Patra, S., Rakheja, S., Boutin, J. & Boileau, P.-E. 2008. Assesments
of two dynamic manikins for laboratory testing of seats under whole-
body vibration. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. 38:457-
470.
Nishiyama, S., Uesegi, N., Takeshima, T., Kano, Y. & Togii, H. 2000. Research
on vibration characteristics between human body and seat, steering wheel,
and pedals (effect of seat positionon ride comfort). Journal of sound and
vibration 236 (1):1-21.
Paddan, G.S. & Griffin, M.J. 1998. A review of the transmission of translational
seat vibration to the head. Journal of Sound and Vibration. 215 (4):863-
882.
Qiu, Y. & Griffin, M.J. 2003. Transmission of fore-aft vibration to a car seat
using field tests and laboratory simulation. Journal of Sound and
Vibration. 264:135-155.