Passenger Vehicle Driver's Lower Limbs Ergonomics through the Development of Biomechanical Models

2015-36-0205

09/22/2015

Event
24th SAE Brasil International Congress and Display
Authors Abstract
Content
Vehicle ergonomics, more specifically driver ergonomics, has been the subject of interest in the automotive industry as a way to provide customers vehicles that have more than modern project, efficiency and competitive price. The driver ergonomics is related to the way the driver interacts with the vehicle interior, particularly, with the seat, hand and foot controls, considering aspects such as ease of access, space, proper upper and lower limb motion and drivers comfort and fatigue. Regarding the lower limbs, the driver’s comfort can be evaluated in terms of joint moments and muscle forces, which are influenced by the hip, knee and ankle joint angles, which in turn depend on the distances between the seat and pedal. Variations in seat to pedal horizontal or vertical distances will result in different angular positions and, consequently, different joint moments and muscle forces, which are associated to greater or lower muscular activations and greater or lower driver’s fatigue. The present work aims at allowing the analysis of the driver's lower limbs ergonomics through the development of a biomechanical model which, by the use of real driver and vehicle parameters, results in seat adjustments related to more or less comfort. The study shows that the proposed model and framework can be successfully used to investigate driver’s ergonomics. The results show some agreement with experimental data but the predicted most comfortable regions are characterized by more flexed joint configurations when compared to literature data. This indicates the necessity of future model improvements.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2015-36-0205
Pages
9
Citation
Lourenço, H., and Ackermann, M., "Passenger Vehicle Driver's Lower Limbs Ergonomics through the Development of Biomechanical Models," SAE Technical Paper 2015-36-0205, 2015, https://doi.org/10.4271/2015-36-0205.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Sep 22, 2015
Product Code
2015-36-0205
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English