Wheelchair seat design for transport
Robert Bingham - Rehabilitation Engineer, RPH.
The development of a Foam on Ply seating system suitable for transportation of adults was developed to supplement the seating design section of the "Reducing the Risk Manual". The development involved loading to failure a range of seat bases with the same profile and variations in width and material types. From this data the optimal thicknesses for various materials were determined. The test seats were mounted on a surrogate wheelchair frame described in ISO 16840-4 and loaded with an ISO 7176-7 seat loader gauge using the ISO 16840-4(D) loading protocol. Attachment hardware was also designed to be fabricated with minimal technical skill. Loading was applied using an Instron tensile tester at the maximum rate of 35kN/s. Bertocci et al1 demonstrated that loads of around 1000kgf were not uncommon and maximum loading was dependent on seat stiffness. Failure levels were set dependent on seat stiffness in the initial phase of the loading cycle.
- Reference:
- Bertocci G., Szobota S., DongRan H., Van Roosmalen l.: "Development of Frontal Impact Crashworthy Wheelchair Seating Design Criteria Using Computer Simulation".J Rehabil Res Dev 2000; Vol.37(5) pp565-572
The full paper can be downloaded in Microsoft Word and Plain Text formats.