Determination of car seat contact area for personalised thermal sensation modelling

PLoS One. 2018 Dec 11;13(12):e0208599. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208599. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

A lot of daily activities are conducted in a sedentary posture. This includes a thermal interaction between the human and the seat that has implications on thermal perception and comfort. These interactions are investigated by simulating heat and mass transfer, thus, reducing a need for costly and time demanding subject studies. However, it is not clear, from the available literature, what portion of the body surface area is actually affected by the seat with respect to human anthropometry. The aim of this study was to develop a predicting function of the seat contact area based on anthropometric parameters. The results showed strong linear correlation between the contact area obtained by printing a body silhouette on paper placed at the seat and body weight, height, body surface area, and body mass index. The body surface area and the body weight were identified as the best predictors for the contact area.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Body Weight
  • Equipment Design*
  • Ergonomics*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Pressure
  • Thermosensing

Grants and funding

The part of work conducted at Empa was supported by the [HEAT-SHIELD project within EU Horizon 2020 program] under Grand [RIA 668786-1]. Part of the work conducted at Brno University of Technology was supported by the [Ministry of Education project Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic] under the “National Sustainability Programme I” [LO1202 Netme Centre Plus]; and the [Brno University of Technology] under the project Reg. No. [FSI-S-17-4444]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.