EXPERIMENT AND MODELING OF SEATED HUMAN BODY EXPOSED TO LARGE-MAGNITUDE VIBRATION IN SIX SINGLE DIRECTIONS

Abstract

This paper is to perform experiment, modeling and parameter identification for the seated human bodies to provide insight into transmissibilities to the thigh and the chest, and estimate the indistinct spring and damping constants at human-seat interface. A test bench was designed, and a series of experiments was conducted with 15-seated subjects exposed to low-frequency and large-magnitude vibrations individually in roll, pitch, yaw, fore-and-aft, lateral and vertical axes. Transmissibilities were measured for each subject over the frequency range 0.5–8[Formula: see text]Hz. A 12-degree-of-freedom (DOF) biomechanical model was proposed and was subsequently simplified to six 2-DOF models to describe the experimental results in the corresponding directions. Translational and rotational spring and damping coefficients in six directions were identified via a genetic algorithm. Sensitivity tests were carried out and the influences of the spring and damping coefficients on the principal resonance frequencies and the peak moduli of the transmissibilities were exhibited.