Morphological analysis of a Traditional Cow Saddle in the Niigata Prefecture

Abstract

A cow saddle that has been kept in the Yamakoshi-mura Niigata Prefecture was investigated from the viewpoint of design morphology. First, the material and mechanical images of the saddle were structured intuitively by using the DEMATEL method. It was clarified that one of the basic mechanical properties of the saddle was structural flexibility. And, the geometry of the saddle was measured by a 3D digitizer to investigate the structural characteristics of the saddle form in relation to the flexibility. As the result of the simulations, the saddle form seemed to be a dynamical optimized shape that was intuitively made by human hands.