Evaluation of Pilot’s Seat Design of Civil Aircraft for Indian Anthropometric Data by using Delmia Human Software

Abstract

Pilot seat comfort is an essential factor in the civil aviation industry. The evaluation of seat design using flight simulator is cost prohibitive. Data-driven simulation software may solve this issue. The objective of this study was to find optimum parameters of pilot seat adjustment for a different percentile of pilot’s population. Anthropometry is one of the critical aspects in determining the design of cockpit layout. Until now, the design of pilot seats of civil aircraft has mainly focussed on anthropometry of pilots residing in western countries. However, time spent by Indian pilots while sitting on inadequately designed seats might cause back pain and musculoskeletal disorders due to improper posture. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of pilot’s seat adjustment parameters of civil aircraft on Indian pilots by using Delmia Human v6 software. Seat model and cockpit environment used in the simulation was developed using the dimensions from the manual of selected aircraft. Anthropometric data of 100 pilots from different regions of India were collected. Manikins were customized based on 5th, 50th and 95th percentile of collected data were created in Delmia v6 software and then imported into the virtual environment for simulation. The compression and shear forces at l4/l5 vertebrae were calculated by using the biomechanical analysis module of the software. The optimal combinations of the seat adjustment feature were obtained for a different set of pilot population.