Acceptability, Sufficiency, and Comfort in Modern Airline Seating Based on Bideltoid Breadth
Open Access
- Author:
- Nicholson, Riley
- Area of Honors:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Matt Parkinson, Thesis Supervisor
Margaret Louise Byron, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- R Studio
MATLAB
Airplanes
Engineering Design
Human Anthropometry
Human Subject Testing
Designing for Human Variability - Abstract:
- The objective of this senior honors thesis is to develop different relationships on comfort, acceptability, and sufficiency with respect to shoulder width in modern airplane seating. This thesis focuses particularly on bideltoid breadth, or shoulder width, as a key metric in determining acceptability and sufficiency of width and space. When it comes to human anthropometry, nearly every single person has a bideltoid breadth that exceeds their seated hip breadth. As a result of a secular trend in increasing BMI in the adult population, as well as decreased seat size in airlines, a passenger's perception of personal space is altered. This thesis seeks to pose different experimental boundary conditions meant to simulate real-life airplane conditions to determine how passenger interactions affect comfort, acceptability, and sufficiency. This thesis outlines the relevance of this study given the increase in BMI and decrease in seat size, background of human anthropometry and designing for human variability to promote accommodation, and the experimental setup and results found from the data analysis. The experiment presented featured numerous human trials and a robust set of data procured from individuals varying in stature and BMI, aiming to gather enough data to be representative of a real civilian population. From the data gathered, the conclusion was such that a seat width set equal to someone's bideltoid breadth was rated at a higher comfort level than any other condition presented, indicating the need for accommodating passengers based on bideltoid breadth rather than their seated hip breadth.