Bikes are designed to accommodate the average-sized rider, leaving taller and shorter riders weak to discomfort.
A brand new examine from the College of Waterloo used software program that predicted reasonable bike driving behaviours, contemplating human components and ergonomic trade-offs. It discovered that shorter and taller statures require joint changes to attain their most popular driving posture.
Taller riders are required to flex their ankles, knees, hips and elbows extra to work together with the bike correctly, and shorter riders have fewer choices in attainable joint angle configurations, permitting them to succeed in the seat, handlebars and foot pegs concurrently.
The examine was carried out utilizing a digital human mannequin (DHM) — a human illustration within the type of an avatar of any weight, measurement or intercourse — in a digital setting. The software permits researchers to watch human interactions with elements or merchandise equivalent to bikes.
“Using DHMs in early two-wheeled motorized vehicle design may assist producers enhance security, posture and luxury, along with saving prices,” mentioned Justin Davidson, Biomechanics PhD candidate in Waterloo’s Division of Kinesiology and Well being Sciences and co-author of the examine.
“If a automobile producer have been to think about using DHMs earlier of their design, it may take away a few of the earlier trial and error steps. We will change the design and enhance it inside the pc software program earlier than constructing something, making it less expensive in the long term.”
Davidson added that the hope for the longer term is that corporations will enhance their designs to accommodate teams that fall exterior the typical measurement vary, which may very well be executed by learning avatars with numerous weights, heights and sexes inside the DHM.
The ergonomics of bike driving is a reasonably understudied space regardless of bike driving being an more and more well-liked exercise across the globe. Davidson urged that as bike gross sales improve, bike design corporations are looking for applied sciences like DHMs to assist them achieve an edge.
“DHMs aren’t as generally used as they may very well be, and their potential for early design intervention may very well be helpful not solely when utilized to bikes however for sitting in a automotive and even sitting in your workplace,” Davidson mentioned.
“A part of our aim on this analysis is to attempt to transfer the sphere ahead in a means that individuals can use DHM instruments extra confidently in order that we will begin intervening and making issues higher for folks earlier on, hopefully making folks safer and extra comfy.”