Seating analysis, lumbar support etc.

Industries Aerospace Seating analysis, lumbar support etc.

A significant portion of comfort issues are related to the muscular loading situation. The AnyBody Modeling System can be used to get an objective measure on perceived comfort / discomfort. A wealth of properties can be found on individual muscle level based on the applied loads. This allows for a variety of comfort functions to be evaluated, thus quantifying comfort using objective measures.

Examples:

  • Design Optimization of Airline Seats (discomfort from muscle fatigue and shear forces.)
  • Systemic variation of parameters for identification of optimal movement patterns between the seat pan and backrest
  • Musculoskeletal analysis of fatigue
  • Fatigue simulation
  • Differences in muscular activity between different populations during seating
  • Musculoskeletal models for assessing seat comfort analysis / seat discomfort
  • Muscle mechanical characteristics of driver’s lumbar vertebras and legs in different sitting postures

Examples of input and output for a model of seating comfort

Input:

  • Posture of the human model
  • Seat geometry
  • Seat stiffness (optional)

Output:

  • Muscle and joint reaction forces
  • And much more

Contact us to learn more or to discuss how we could solve your problem

The steps to model this can be the following

  1. Import CAD airline / cockpit environment using the AnyBody Exporter for SOLIDWORKS See AnyBody Exporter for SOLIDWORKS® | SOLIDWORKS and Making Models using SOLIDWORKS
  2. Specify the size of the human model
    See e.g., Statistical Scaling Plugin
  3. Connect the human model to the seat and other elements of the vehicle interior using kinematic constraints.
  4. Define motion of the remaining degrees of freedom (DOF) in the human model
  5. Define the force interaction between the human seat and interior, ensure e.g., foot contact with the pedals or footrest
  6. Implement force response on interior components
  7. Define measures for comfort based on model output e.g., based on muscle activity.
  8. Run the model
  9. Evaluate the comfort measure.

Case studies

  • How Ford used AnyBody to quantify key design parameters of the Active Motion™ seat. Download

Webcasts

Selected papers

  • Wolf P, Rausch J, Hennes N, Potthast W (2021), “The effects of joint angle variability and different driving load scenarios on maximum muscle activity – A driving posture simulation study“, Int. J. Ind. Ergon., vol. 84, pp. 103161. [DOI, WWW]
  • Gao F, Zong S, Han ZW, Xiao Y, Gao ZH (2020), “Musculoskeletal computational analysis on muscle mechanical characteristics of drivers’ lumbar vertebras and legs in different sitting postures“, Rev. Assoc. Med. Bras., vol. 66, pp. 637-642. [DOI, WWW]
  • Noor NS, Ghazalli Z, Rejab MR, Fauzi FA, Mamat R, Kadirgama K, Sani MS, Ahmad Z, Johari NH (2017), “A Comparison of Muscular Activity Among European, Korea and Malaysian During Seating Using Musculoskeletal Computational Analysis Method“, Adv. Sci. Lett., vol. 23, pp. 11471-11474. [DOI, WWW]
  • Savonnet L, Duprey S, Wang X (2016), “Coupling rigid multi-body and deformable finite element human models for assessing seat discomfort“, DHM 2016, Montreal, 2016. [PDF, WWW]
  • binti Abdul Majid NA (2011), “Musculoskeletal analysis of driving fatigue: The influence of seat condition“, Thesis, Meiji University, Japan. [PDF]
  • Rasmussen J, Andersen MS, Al-Munajjed AA, Upmann A (2014), “H-point simulation in musculoskeletal models of seating“, 3rd International Digital Human Modeling Symposium (DHM2014), May 20-22, 2014, Tokyo, Japan. [WWW]
  • Abdullah E, Fareez M, Jamaludin MS, Notomi M, Rasmussen J, Others (2013), “Musculoskeletal Analysis of Driving Fatigue: The Influence of Seat Adjustments“, In: Advanced Engineering Forum, pp. 373-378. [PDF, DOI, WWW]
  • Rasmussen J, de Zee M (2008), “Design Optimization of Airline Seats“, SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars – Electron. Electr. Syst., vol. 1, pp. 580-584. [DOI, WWW]
  • De Zee M, Rasmussen J, Lem J, Siebertz K (2005), “Computer Simulations of the Active Motion System with Musculo-skeletal Models“, In: SAE Technical Paper Series, pp. 272-278. [DOI, WWW]
  • See more aerospace related publications
  • See more automotive related papers
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