Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
R G Rajhans
Tata Technologies Ltd., Pune, India
Copyright 2011 SAE International and Copyright 2011 SIAT, India
ABSTRACT
In India, small car segment is having maximum sale, which includes cars like Maruti 800, SUZUKI Swift, Maruti Alto, Tata Indica, etc. Driver seat is one of the main aspects to be considered while dening comfort in a moving vehicle. The current analysis concentrates on driver seat because driver comfort is of main concern since it is the most occupied seat in any vehicle and the occupancy is for longer duration. In addition to sitting, the driver job is to manipulate different controls and concentrate parallely on many aspects. The research work aims at studying the vertical vibrations transferred to the human body via seat. The work is an attempt towards studying dynamic characteristics of driver seat for comfort through objective evaluation. For objective evaluation, two tests were conducted; Seat Effective Amplitude Transmissibility (SEAT) test and Ride Comfort Index test under two different conditions i.e. car level and seat level testing on Car A and Car B. Both tests were carried out under controlled conditions. Car level test was carried out on 4-Poster simulator, which can simulate exact road conditions in vertical direction whereas seat level testing is done on electro-dynamic shaker, which simulates sinusoidal signals. Results of experimentations i.e. accelerations at seat base and seat mount were compared with reference standard ISO 2631-1(1997) which indicated average Root Mean Square (RMS) of Car A and Car B is 0.007 and 0.008 Km/s2 respectively. Hence according to ISO 2631-1(1997), both cars fall into Fairly uncomfortable zone. SEAT Test revealed transmissibility in two different positions (Front most and rearmost position). In front most position, transmissibility is 65.66% and 204% for Car B and 1
Car A respectively, whereas transmissibility is 63.56% and 145% for Car B and Car A in rearmost position of seat. Keywords : Ride Comfort, Driver Seat, Four-Poster Simulator, Transmissibility, Comfort Index
INTRODUCTION
Hertzberg [1] denes ride comfort is absence of discomfort. Ride comfort analysis is one of the important aspects of the vehicle from performance point of view. For objective evaluation of Ride comfort, two tests were conducted namely SEAT% [2] (Seat Effective Amplitude Transmissibility) test and Ride Comfort Index [3] test under two different conditions i.e. car level and seat level testing and their comparison with benchmark car. Both tests had been carried out under controlled conditions (Experimental works in laboratory were considered as controllable) and results were correlated with reference standard ISO 26311(1997).
The instrumentation and set-up used for the test is as follows (Fig. 1): 1. 2. Shaker universal testing machine, Tri-axial accelerometers: 3 Nos. Positions 1: Shaker table, Positions 2: Seat mount, Positions 3: Seat Base. 3. 4. 5. Data acquisition unit, Post processor, Rigid dummy: 50kgs (equivalent to seating weight)
Seat % Output
Seat values were obtained for car A and car B driver seat by importing the post-processed (power spectrum) data from the analyzer into the Microsoft Excel program. The ride on the seat (output) is the integral of frequency-weighted experienced on the seat, whereas the ride on the oor (input) is the integral of frequency-weighted experienced on the oor. From the basic knowledge of integral, this equation can be stated as the ratio of the area under the graph of ride on the seat to the area under the graph of ride on the oor, as below:
Dominant frequencies in both cases were found out which is around 5 Hz. Transmissibility (SEAT %) for car A and Car B in both seat positions (rear and front) was calculated, (Table 2 and Fig. 6)
(1) Where, Gs (f) : Accelerations at seat base (output), Gf (f) : Accelerations at ooring (input), Wb (f) : Frequency Weighing factor. 2 Figure 2. Frequency Domain Data: Car A Seat Position: Rear
Figure 3. Frequency Domain Data: Car A Position: Front Figure 6. Car A & B- SEAT % vs Seat Locations
Figure 5. Frequency Domain Data: Car B Seat Position: Front The SEAT % test reveals that Car B seat is more comfortable than the Car A seat since Car B seat is having better vibration damping properties than car A. I.e. Transmissibility of Car B seat is less than 100% whereas transmissibility of Car A seat is more than 100%. 3
3. 4. 5.
This test was carried out by increasing the frequency, from 1 Hz until 50 Hz taking input as the road prole for both car A and car B. There were two kinds of data in the test; input data and output data. Input data was obtained from the accelerometer installed at the seat mounts, whereas output data would be obtained from the seat pad accelerometer put on the seat base.
Where, awx : Weighted RMS acceleration w.r.t. axis x, awy : Weighted RMS acceleration w.r.t. axis y, awz : Weighted RMS acceleration w.r.t. axis z, av : Combined R.M.S., k : Multiplying factors. Table 5: Results for Ride Comfort Index Vehicle Level Testing for Car A and Car B
2.
IS14917 (Part-1):2001, ISO10326-1:1992, Mechanical Vibration Laboratory Method for Evaluating Vehicle Seat Vibration (Part 1 Basic Requirements) ISO 2631-1 (1997): Mechanical Vibration and Shock Evaluation of Human Exposure to Whole Body Vibration Part 1: General requirements. (Page No. 14 -16) BA7054 Standard: Human Vibrations
3.
4.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I sincerely thanks to all those who have supported me to carry out this work.
CONTACT
Road prole simulation illustrated indicates that, Ride Index for Car A is better than Car B which means Car A as a whole system (vehicle level) is better as compared to Car B. Jayant S. Karajagikar E-mail: jkarajagikar@yahoo.com
DEFINITIONS
1. SEAT % [2]: Seat Effective Amplitude Transmissibility (SEAT) is a non-dimensional measure of the efciency of a seat in isolating the body from vibration or shock. SEAT values have been widely used to determine the vibration isolation efciency of a seat. SEAT% value is dened as:
CONCLUSIONS
Observations based on the experimentations conducted on Car A and Car B are: In seat level testing, SEAT value indicates, Car B seat damps the vibration whereas Car A seat amplies the vibrations at seat top. In vehicle level testing, overall vehicle is considered for testing vibrations in vertical direction. According to ISO2631-1(1997), the Ride Index for both cars A and B are in Fairly Uncomfortable zone.
2.
Ride Comfort Index [3]: It is the qualitative measure of comfort as per reference standard ISO-2631-1[1997].
REFERENCES
1. Hertzberg H T E, The Human Buttocks in Sitting: Pressures, Patterns, and Palliatives, SAE Paper, No. 72005, 1972
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