Abstract
A wheelchair is one of the most widely used welfare equipments to move. But wheelchair's users are exposed to vibration and have a uncomfortable feeling when wheelchair passes over steps. To assure comfortable life for wheelchair users, it is necessary to improve ride quality of wheelchair. To improve ride quality of wheelchair, casters with suspension have been on the market. Authors have tried them, but authors' opinion is they are inadequate. In this report, motion of wheelchair when it passes over steps has been experimentally clarified. And based on the experimental results the dynamic simulation model of the wheelchair and human has been proposed, and transmitting mechanism of wheelchair's vibration has been investigated. Besides ride quality has been evaluated by using VDV and RSM. As a result, modification of caster is most effective to improve the ride quality. So, we investigated relationship between parameters of the caster and ride quality.
