Analysis of sitting comfortability of driver's seat by contact shape

In order to evaluate sitting comfort qualitatively, a flexible and very thin sensor was developed to measure the contact shape between a seated man and the seat surface. Each tape has twenty strain gauges on it at regular intervals, and the fourteen tape sensors were arranged on the bottom and back surface of the experimental driver's seat. The contact shapes and postures in thirty two male drivers were measured with two types of seat cushion and sitting posture: free and recommended. Sensory evaluation was made for each experimental condition. The results of the interrelation between the characteristics of the surface deformation, the parameters of body build, sitting posture and feeling of comfort shows that the comfort of each morphological fitting does not correspond to one special and single parameter from those physical factors, but is represented by a function with many parameters related to the deformation, posture and body build. By using these relations, a sensory model for the prediction of the sitting comfort was constructed.