Relationship between Comfortable Feelings and Distribution of Seat Pressure in Sustaining a Sitting Posture for a Long Time

Abstract

It is necessary to clarify the method for measuring a comprehensive evaluation from plurality criteria of the physical load when they sitting on a chair, because they cannot access their sitting posture during a continuous working. Further, in order to provide a chair that fits the user, it is important to find simple evaluation method of comfort when sitting on a chair. Further, in order to develop a good chair that fits to the users, it is important to find simple evaluation method on comfortable sitting conditions when sitting on a chair. The aim of this paper is to show some rating factors on comfort or discomfort when sitting on a chair for a long time. The experiment was carried out using an office chair. Body pressure distribution of the buttocks was measured by electrical seat sensor for an hour of one session. In addition, they were interviewed on five items of subjective evaluation every five minutes during an hour sitting situation. According to the experiments, we found that elapsed time and two feature values of the total load area of the body pressure distribution and the ratio of the particularly highly pressure area are effective to predict discomfort. And we derived a regression equation to predict the increase of discomfort using the average pressure distribution when they are sitting. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.