  The seat to head vibration transmissibility depends on various
characteristics of the seat and the human body. One of these, is the contact
interaction, which transmits vibrational energy from the seat to the body. To
enhance ride comfort, seat designers should be able to accurately simulate seat
contact without the need for extensive experiments. Here, the contact area,
pressure, friction and seat and body deformation in compression and shear play
a significant role. To address these challenges, the aim of this paper is to
define appropriate contact models to improve the prediction capabilities of a
seated human body model with regards to experimental data. A computationally
efficient multibody (MB) model is evaluated interacting with finite element
(FE) and MB backrest models, using several contact models. Outcomes are
evaluated in the frequency domain for 3D vibration transmission from seat to
pelvis, trunk, head and knees. Results illustrate that both FE and MB backrest
models allowing compression and shear provide realistic results.
