Abstract
Keywords: Biomechanics, CAE, Comfort, Ergonomics, Vehicle Interior
Vehicle Comfort is a known customer want and receives increasing attention as a strong sales argument. Customers expect a higher level of driving quality even for smaller cars, sport or off road vehicles. The average customer spends more time in the car. Higher traffic density and speed increase the driver's workload. The average age of the driving population is increasing, at least in Europe and the US.
Current comfort evaluations rely to a large extend on hardware and therefore slow down the vehicle development process. Main tasks for the scientist are the differentiation of independent comfort aspects and the development of suitable tools to quantify related responses. Many comfort issues are related to the human locomotor system. High muscular effort or long term muscle tension can both become uncomfortable, depending on the driving situation and the individual anatomy of the driver. Standard CAE tools for vehicle development do not offer the calculation of muscular loads during driving.
The AnyBody Car Driver Model has been developed to fill this gap and allows a CAE driven comfort evaluation covering the issues mentioned above. A fully parameterized vehicle interior model has been developed and combined with a scalable biomechanical model of the human body. Muscular loads can be calculated as function of the human body movement and the external loads. Two sample applications are presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the model. The calculated muscular activations are in good overall agreement with the measured EMG envelopes.