Front Loading of Foot Swing Envelop during Egress to Vehicle Architecture

In automotive industry, design of vehicle to end customer with proper ergonomics and balancing the design is always a challenge, for which an accurate prediction of postures are needed. Several studies have used Digital Human Models (DHM) to examine specific movements related to ingress and egress by translating complex tasks, like vehicle egress through DHMs. This requires an in-depth analysis of users to ensure such models reflect the range of abilities inherent to the population. Designers are increasingly using digital mock-ups of the built environment using DHMs as a means to reduce costs and speed-up the “time-to-market” of products. DHMs can help to improve the ergonomics of a product but must be representative of actual users. While lots of studies have examined movements specific to vehicle ingress and egress patterns, there has been no critical appraisal or systematic review of these findings in terms of foot movement which is always in contact with the vehicle floor and its constraints. Such a review would be beneficial in order to highlight key findings as well as considering the limitations and gaps in current research. Hence, this paper is aimed at studying the critical parameters associated with the human posture and attempts to present the quick, simple and economical process, which focuses on (i) to provide information on the most relevant egress patterns with respect to car geometry (i.e., seat, sill width, B-pillar profile) and corresponding occupant characteristics and; (ii) Summarize findings in terms of envelop which can be front loaded in the design (vehicle architecture), also (iii) Making a physical mock up and conducting the jury trial with the design inputs set of population rating the aspect (egress). The foot movements here are derived and mapped considering comfort range of motion of the joint angles and used to front load in the vehicle architecture.