Relationship between measured apparent mass and seat-to-head transmissibility responses of seated occupants exposed to vertical vibration

Abstract The “to-the-body” and “through-the-body” biodynamic response functions of the seated human body exposed to vertical vibration are measured and analyzed in an attempt to identify relationships between the apparent mass and seat-to-head transmissibility measures. The experiments involved 12 male subjects exposed to three magnitudes of whole-body vertical random vibration (0.25,0.5,1.0 m/s2 rms acceleration) in the 0.5–15 Hz frequency range, and seated with three back support conditions (none, vertical and inclined), and two different hands positions (hands in lap and hands on the steering wheel). The vertical apparent mass and seat-to-head transmissibility responses were acquired during the experiments, where the head acceleration was measured using a light and adjustable helmet-strap mounted accelerometer. The results showed that both the measured responses show good agreements in the primary resonances, irrespective of the back support condition, while considerable differences between the normalized apparent mass and seat-to-head transmissibility could be seen in the secondary resonance range for the two back supported postures. The seat-to-head transmissibility responses are further shown to be relatively sensitive to back supported postures compared with that of apparent mass responses. Relatively stronger effects of hands position were observed on the seat-to-head transmissibility responses compared with the apparent mass responses under back supported conditions. From the results, it is further concluded that seat-to-head transmissibility emphasizes the biodynamic response in the vicinity of the secondary resonance compared to the apparent mass. The seat-to-head transmissibility measure is thus considered to be more appropriate for describing seated body response to higher frequency vibration.