Vibration Properties of Frame for Human Powered Vehicles

Abstract

Comfort is an important factor concerning automobiles, more so with bicycles. This remark has to be viewed with the operator’s strong connection to its own human powered vehicle, always in mind. Where an automobile might give the driver a lot of damping from the vibrations induced upon the vehicle, a bicycle has very few components between the operator and the vibration inducing elements. Therefore ample studies indicate the vibration damping effects of different shock absorbers, analyze the effect of certain types of vibrations on the human body and identify the type of vibrations that usually occur when riding a human powered vehicle. Many such studies concur that vibrations that protrude to operator through the vehicle, are very specific to a certain vehicle. In this case, when designing and developing a human powered vehicle, identifying the specific modal frequencies is imperative. Also identifying the types of frequencies induced by certain elements can help form an image about the vehicle, the vehicle properties and possibly the comfort of the operator.