TECHNOLOGY ERGONOMICS
Efficiency drive Mercedes AMG
Ergonomics is the study of best fitting people to their working environment. When it comes to racing, that’s more important than you might think By JAHEE CAMPELLBRENNAN
W
hen we’re looking at sports, and more importantly team sports, where running an efficient operation is a competitive edge, ergonomics becomes an especially interesting subject, and a particularly relevant one given the recent 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Providing an ergonomically positive environment for a team of mechanics, engineers and drivers to perform their job of winning races is a complex and broad task. Mechanics need good tools and well designed, serviceable cars to perform work under time pressures without strain or fatigue, and engineers need good computing infrastructure and communication equipment to analyse, set-up and support the vehicle. This approach feeds all the way up the chain to the driver, who needs to be in a cabin with suitable ergonomic design at their physical interfaces with the car through the seat, controls and to the sensory environments of sight and sound. Any failings in these areas affects their ability to race. Ergonomic design for the driver requires controls to be positioned within comfortable reach, support in a comfortable yet not overly restrictive seat, and personal protection such as race suit and helmet which does not restrict their movement and keeps them cool. They also need a clear, unobstructed, well lit view of the road ahead and suitable NVH qualities. Oh, and no porpoising!
Sensory experience These considerations of the sensory experience must be incorporated directly into the engineering and development process from the beginning, not as an afterthought. This is especially relevant in endurance racing where drivers can spend upwards of three hours at a time in intense race conditions. 54 www.racecar-engineering.com SEPTEMBER 2022
Cabin ergonomics are an integral part of the driver experience, and must be considered from the beginning of the design process
The first task for any racecar design, then, is to properly locate the driver seating position and controls. Whether the car be of a monocoque chassis construction or otherwise, the roofline and roll structure will largely determine how reclined the driver must be. This sets the basic seating format. It’s common practice to employ the use of digital mannequins representing the dimensions of the expected driving population to define initial cabin size limits. This ensures an overall cabin volume and positioning of major components so the majority of drivers can operate the racecar with appropriate comfort. Different manufacturers have alternative methods of defining these mannequins, from the 95th percentile approach, which represents a form covering 95 per cent of the adult male population, to more specific approaches using data gathered on a specific
range of drivers they know will be using a particular chassis. Manufacturers such as Audi Sport, who have the resource to develop car platforms from the ground up from a blank sheet of paper, spend significant amounts of time and money ensuring this is correct. ‘We do the first driver placement using a virtual dummy and test this in a wooden cabin mock-up that represents the monocoque,’ explains Axel Löffler, chief designer of Audi Sport’s racecars. ‘We put the driver in the mock-up and see how we can best make them comfortable using foam blocks in different thicknesses to bring them back and forth, and up and down within the available cabin space to define the optimum seating position.’ This seating position is also dictated by the driver’s line of sight outside of the cabin, their so-called vision lines.
