Modelling the Car Seated Human Body using Composite Ellipsoidal Bodies and Evaluation of Size and Shape Specific Stiffness Data for Various Human Segments

Automobile is one of the primary modes of worldwide transport system, which must offer highest level of health, safety and comfort levels for the occupants inside. Health, safety and comfort of any moving vehicle and its human occupants are mainly characterized by the level of the vibration generated inside the human body. With the development of modern computer based technologies, over last few decades computerized simulations have been gaining huge importance to anticipate the level of vibration generated inside the automotive seated human body. Many simulation based research works had been conducted in past to predict the effect of vibration inside automotive-human assembly, though one of the key parameters to define the simulation set up, namely stiffness values of different human segments; had been collected from past relevant research studies or available testing data resources, which overlooked the real shapes and sizes of the human portions, hence, lacking the practical feasibility. In this research paper, a simplified car seated human made of ellipsoidal segments has been proposed. The segmental dimensions and masses have been extracted from anthropometric database and later, the formulations for composite fibre-matrix configuration have been implemented. A systematic approach has been outlined to evaluate the three-dimensional stiffness values for all the human portions. The obtained stiffness values have been validated by comparing to the data obtained from similar kind of investigations and test results.