A redesign of the DLSU urban concept vehicle cockpit

• Main Authors: Basa, Giannina Marie Z., Garcia, Timothy John B., Santiago, Noelle S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Electric vehicles; Solar vehicles; Solar cars; Industrial Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/7177
• Institution: De La Salle University

To address the issues of environmental pollution and sustainability in transportation, the DLSU Eco Car teams (DLSU-ECT) spearheads the development of the DLSU Archer, and urban concept vehicle (UCV). However, drivers of the DLSU Archer experienced discomfort during and after they drive the vehicle. It has been established that they are exposed to medium risk of MSD as manifested by a RULA grand score of 4. Risk areas are the trunk and legs. The study aims to redesign the DLSU UCV cockpit to improve the posture of the drivers by lowering their RULA score and to eliminate discomfort in the vehicle. The drivers' physical discomforts were identified through FGD. RULA method determined which body parts in driving posture were the most prone to injury reinforcing the rules of the FGD. The causes were then identified through anthropometric and seat design analysis by comparing the cockpit and seat dimensions to the drivers' anthropometric measurements. Based on the non-conforming car attribute dimensions of the cockpit recognized from the cause analysis, these were chosen as factors for experimentation in creating the new design. A 2k factorial experiment was conducted using factors from cause analysis to identify the significant factors to manipulate in the design. The significant factor was used in the one factor design using the response surface methodology to determine the optimal setting. In the final design, anthropometric 95th percentile values were used for clearances and were held constant, while 5th percentile values were used for reach distances both needed to increase driver comfort. The optimal backrest angle was applied to the redesigned cockpit. A physical prototype using the dimensions and angles obtained in the study was produced to test the results and the applied dimensions of the redesigned vehicle cockpit and it was tested by allowing team drivers to sit in the prototype to assess their RULA grand score and comfort evaluation. The 2k factorial experiment results yielded that the backrest angles is significant. The study was able to reduce the RULA grand score and eliminated the discomfort of drivers in the proposed cockpit design. Moreover, the study was able to provide guidelines for future designs of the UCV based on the population of the DLSU-ECT.