Influence of forces on comfort feeling in vehicles

When investigating the posture comfort in vehicles two important influencing factors can be distinguished: the forces to maintain the body posture and the joint angles of the human body. In order to evaluate these influences a combined laboratory-field-experiment was carried out. A real car was equipped with cameras to record the body posture and the joint angles. The static forces exerted by the driver on his contact points were recorded in a corresponding mock-up. The forces to maintain the body posture were calculated. The following results were found: The joint angles have an important influence on the comfort feeling, whereas the forces to maintain the body posture have only slight effects on the comfort. The discomfort increases continuously for ca. four hours and is nearly constant after this time.