Mining Publication: Comfort Evaluation for Mine Shuttle Car Seat Designs
Original creation date: June 2006
Industrial equipment exposes individuals to whole-body vibration (WBV) and mechanical shock. This exposure can negatively impact their health, safety, comfort, and working efficiency and performance. Accordingly, proper seat design is an important consideration in reducing the adverse effects of WBV exposure to vehicle operators. Since the human body is sensitive to low frequency WBV, ride quality is a basic and important element of good seat design. When designing a suitable seat, it is essential to understand vibration exposure environment of workers and how well they can tolerate this environment. This is particularly true in the mining industry. Mayton et al. reported on a low-coal shuttle car seat design that underwent limited, yet successful underground mine trials. Building on this work, a follow-up study compared NIOSH and existing seat designs on low- and mid-coal seam shuttle cars. The NIOSH seat designs included viscoelastic foam, which has properties similar to those found in a mechanical spring/damper suspension system. The seats also included an adjustable lumbar support and a fore-aft seat adjustment. The NIOSH seat designs contrast with the existing seat design, which have little or no lumbar support and include inexpensive foam padding of the type commonly used in furniture. This paper will focus on the seat designs for the mid-coal seam shuttle car and compare subjective comfort data collected from five vehicle operators with ISO 2631 - based reduced comfort boundary (RCB) analysis of recorded vibration levels.
Authors: AG Mayton, CC Jobes, NK Kittusamy, F Amirouche
NIOSH/USBM Numbered Publication - June 2006
NIOSHTIC2 Number: 20030962
Proceedings of the First American Conference on Human Vibration, June 5-7, 2006, Morgantown, West Virginia. Dong R, Krajnak K, Wirth O, Wu J, eds., Morgantown, WV: DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2006-140, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2006 Jun; :29-30
See Also
- Acceleration and GPS Data Monitor Truck-Haulage Jolts
- Ergonomic Seat With Viscoelastic Foam Reduces Shock on Underground Mobile Equipment
- Improved Seat Reduces Jarring/Jolting for Operators of Low-Coal Shuttle Cars
- Investigation of Ampacity Derating Factors for Shuttle Cars Using Fiber Optics Technology
- Laboratory Investigation of Seat Suspension Design Performance during Vibration Testing
- Physiological Responses and Subjective Discomfort of Simulated Whole-Body Vibration From a Mobile Underground Mining Machine
- Shock Reduction for Low-Coal Shuttle Car Operators Using Viscoelastic Seating Foam
- Systematic Comparison of Different Seats on Shuttle Cars Used in Underground Coal Mines
- Whole-Body Vibration and Postural Stress among Operators of Construction Equipment: A Literature Review
- Whole-Body Vibration Exposure Comparison of Seat Designs for Low- and Mid-Seam Shuttle Cars in Underground Coal Mines
- Content source: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Mining Program