Multi-excitation discomfort in a driving car: contribution from steering wheel, floor and seat vibrations

International audienceVibration and sound inside a car cabin could arise from different interface and affect the passenger in different way. The current study aims at characterizing the relative importance of steering wheel, floor and seat vibrations on the global discomfort. In a driving simulator, showing a straight road, 150 vibration situations were presented to 30 subjects. Vibration levels ranged from 110 to 130 dB for the steering wheel and 100 to 120 dB for the floor and seat (0 dB ref : 10-6 m/s�). For each situation, subjects were asked to rate their overall feeling of discomfort, using a Borg scale between 0 and 50. In order to increase the realism of the experiment, stimuli were continuously modified from one set of values to the next one, before staying at constant levels for a few seconds to allow the participant to assess discomfort. This experiment allowed to evaluate the relative discomfort of each interface and to determine their relative weighting in an overall discomfort index. Results and limitations of the current experiment will be presented at the congress