Driver comfort improvement for a deep mine tipper vehicle for sustained fatigue free persistent driving

Drivers of heavy commercial tipper vehicles are required to work in the application of carrying heavy loads as well as the rough terrain in off-road conditions. Due to the nature of the application, the primary vehicle/chassis suspension and the cabin suspension are designed to take higher tonnages of load carrying capacity as well as to withstand the rigors of the tough off road terrain conditions. The primary objective of the vehicle and cab suspension design is to enhance the vehicle durability and endurance life suitable for the application. This results in the drivers being subjected to continuous or intermittent exposure of comprehensive magnitudes of low frequency high amplitude whole-body vibration. Short term impact of such vibration results in blurred vision, headache, dizziness and fatigue, etc Prolonged exposure to such vibration has been associated with disorders of the lumbar spine and the connected nervous system. This effectively poses a critical occupational hazard to the drivers working in such harsh environment. This paper deals with the isolation of the harmful vibration and improvement of the driver seat comfort by a) studying the suitability of the various seat vibration isolation systems on the tipper application b) comparison of impact for the various types of isolation system on the whole body vibration c) impact of spring stiffness on the isolation phenomenon d) study of the augmented damping characteristics to reduce the transmission of input vibration and e) finalizations of the vibration isolation system for effective damping of potentially injurious vibration and shock motions to the seated drivers