Influence of pavement type and speed on whole body vibration (WBV) levels measured on passenger vehicles

Abstract

Land vehicles are known sources of vibration. Several studies show that depending on the exposure levels and durations, such exposure can be extremely uncomfortable or cause health problems for the occupants. Therefore, awareness of these levels is very important for designing safe and comfortable vehicles in relation to human vibration. In general, due attention is not paid on the influence of pavement type and/or speed the vehicles travel on the measured whole body vibration (WBV) levels as it is the objective of the present work. This study measures WBV levels on three different car models, traveling on two different types of pavements (asphalt and stone paved roads) to show their relationship to car speed. Considering the values suggested as safe for health in ISO2631-1:1997 (Amendment 1. International Standardization Organization, Geneva, 2010), correlations were obtained between the speed and exposure time for each type of pavement used. Additionally, for each pavement investigated, numerical expressions were also obtained as a function of speed, considering the average vertical vibration for all car models tested. It is worth to mention that the stone pavement commonly used in Brazil differs from the ones used abroad. In Brazil, the stones are neither regular, nor paved evenly. Consequently, presenting these levels is a contribution of this study. Moreover, with the given data it is possible to study the effects of vehicular WBV on people’s health and comfort in controlled environments without being limited to the tested conditions, allowing better cars to be produced.