Abstract
Seat comfort is regarded as one of the most important parts in vehicle comfort design, but objective evaluation ways for seat foam materials were studied rarely. In this study, two kinds of evaluation indicators, physical characteristics of seat foam and pressure distribution were analyzed regarding seat static and dynamic comfort of heavy trucks. Analysis of relationships between foam hardness and subjective evaluation showed that hardness and stiffness could be good indicators of seat comfort. Considering limits of the physical tests, pressure distribution at body seat contact interface were analyzed and pressure at buttock and ischial tuberosities area were found to be good indicators reflecting both subjective feelings and foam hardness information. For dynamic riding comfort, the time delay in the force transfer gradient between buttocks and thighs obtained from body pressure distribution was found to be good indicator for dynamic cushioning feelings. Test results showed that pressure distribution could be a good way to comprehensively reflect seat comfort, while the physical characteristics of the foam gave a theoretical support for the selection of the foam materials. Thus the combination of both indicators might be optimal in seat foam static and dynamic comfort evaluation and design process for heavy vehicles.
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Acknowledgments
This study was financially supported by Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (2013XJ002) and 2014−2015 Beijing Undergraduate Technological Innovation Program titled “Vehicle Driver Seat Modeling and Comfort Simulation”.
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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
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Jin, X. et al. (2016). Heavy Vehicle Seat Foam Evaluation of Static and Dynamic Comfort by Body Pressure Sensors. In: Proceedings of SAE-China Congress 2015: Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 364. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-978-3_36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-978-3_36
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Online ISBN: 978-981-287-978-3
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