Improvement of bicycle ride comfort by reduction of seat vibration

Abstract

Bicycle is a popular vehicle for general public because of the low price and the easy maintenance, and will be more importance vehicle by the low environmental loading in the future. Improvement of bicycle ride comfort is one of important factors to increase the popularity. In this study, subjective evaluation test and reduction of bicycle vibration were performed to improve it. In the subjective evaluation, low frequency seat vibration was found to affect the ride comfort very much. Subsequently, transfer path analysis (TPA) and hammering test were performed to obtain vibration characteristic of the bicycle for reduction of the seat vibration. Through TPA, rear frame of the bicycle was found to have high influence to seat vibration than that of front side and the vibration behavior was obtained by modal analysis. For reduction of the seat vibration, a spring was inserted to the front of the seat and steel plates were attached to rear frame to increase the stiffness. As a result, the acceleration level at running condition was decreased about 10 dB by the modification, and the ride comfort was improved so much. © 2012 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.