Abstract
This paper describes the method to measure the displacement of tympanic membrane of the passengers of the high speed elevators and the evaluation of the relationship among the air pressure, behavior of tympanic membrane and ear pressure discomfort. The ear pressure discomfort is caused by the difference of air pressure between the lower floors and the higher floors. For the recent high rise buildings, the effect of ear pressure discomfort is getting much important for the ride comfort of the elevator passengers. The "shape from shading" method is applied to reproduce the displacement of tympanic membrane measured by microscope and high speed video camera. Then the relationship between the displacement and the ear pressure discomfort is evaluated. The result shows that the maximum displacement of tympanic membrane is about 2 mm and it hardly moves much more when an elevator car descends, and then, the ear pressure discomfort is the worst and it is not improved without active opening of the eustachian tube. Additionally, when a car descends, there is no relationship between the displacement of tympanic membrane and the velocity of air pressure change.
