A New Dummy for Vibration Transmissibility Measurement in Improving Ride Comfort

Continuing effort in measuring human vibration response results in a new design of vibration comfort dummy. The difference between this new dummy and other mechanical dummies is that (1) it uses a soft human-tissue like lower torso so it matches compliance better than the previous ones, and (2) it utilizes the spring and damping characteristics of the compliant lower torso. The lower torso is integrated with a spring-mass load simulating the top body of human so that the integrated dummy consists of two parts. This unique design greatly improves the accuracy and stability of transmissibility measurement and provides a direct application tool in seat prototype development. The results measured with dummy are compared with that measured with 3 human subjects in different percentiles and good match is found in the first transmissibility resonance and overall vibration response. As an outcome, the dummy is used to replace human subjects to conduct a series of design of experiment tests to find the optimal component combinaitons. Structural improvements in transmissibility is obtained. This paper is a continuing study focused on correlating the dummy vibration response to human response. The results show that the earlier research has paid off and a dummy can help seat prototype design in improving ride comfort.