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Orientador: Lucila Chebel Labaki / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T11:09:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_MarielaCristinaAyresde_M.pdf: 6854389 bytes, checksum: b57a8ee9716fad941cfcb623a482fdf3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003 / Resumo: A preocupação com a avaliação de conforto no Brasil, em meados de 1930, procurava nos métodos, propostos e utilizados internacionalmente, condições de adaptá-los às variáveis brasileiras. Tem-se conhecimento do trabalho de dois pesquisadores brasileiros sobre índices de conforto térmico nessa época: Paulo Sá e Benjamim Alves Ribeiro. Estas pesquisas buscam estabelecer uma relação entre a sensação individual de conforto térmico e os índices obtidos pelos vários métodos utilizados na época, principalmente as catatemperaturas e a temperatura efetiva. O resgate e análise da pesquisa de Paulo Sá demonstram não apenas a abordagem científica e a obtenção de temperaturas de conforto térmico para a cidade do Rio de Janeiro, como também as dificuldades metodológicas e científicas existentes. Os valores encontrados pelas pesquisas de Paulo Sá e Benjamin Alves Ribeiro foram utilizados para cálculo do VME, proposto por Fanger, através do uso do software Conforto 2.02. O trabalho também apresenta a metodologia utilizada por Paulo Sá e Benjamim Alves Ribeiro, Fanger e Michael Humphreys em pesquisas realizadas em escolas ou com estudantes. Destes, apenas Fanger trabalhou com câmaras climatizadas. O ambiente escolar tem se mostrado propício a estudos de avaliação de conforto térmico, tanto pela importância do mesmo, como pela atividade desenvolvida, faixa etária e facilidade de implementação da pesquisa. Desse modo, uma descrição e comparação de metodologias relativas ao ambiente escolar são relatados neste trabalho / Abstract: The researches about thermal comfort evaluation in Brazil, in the middle of 1930, were searching for the internationally used and proposed methods, so that the conditions to adapt them to Brazilian environmental parameters could be achieved. The work of two Brazilian researchers who were researching thermal comfort indexes by that time are known: Paulo Sá and Benjamim Alves Ribeiro. In their researches they were working to establish a relationship between the individual thermal sensation and the indexes obtained by the several methods used at that time, mainly the catatemperatures and the effective temperatures. When analyzing the research of Paulo Sá, it can be shown his scientific approach and the obtaining of comfort temperatures for the city of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the existent methodological and scientific difficulties. The values found by those authors were used to the calculation of the PMV, proposed by Ole Fanger, through the use of the software Comfort 2.02. This work also presents the methodology used by Paulo Sá and Benjamim Alves Ribeiro, Fanger and Michael Humphreys in researches accomplished at schools or with students. Fanger worked with students in acclimatized cameras and the others with naturally ventilated environments. Schools are an appropriate environment to studies about thermal comfort evaluation not only due to the importance of the theme, but also for the developed activity, age group and easiness of implementation of the research. A description and comparison of different methods applied to the school environment are presented in this work / Mestrado / Edificações / Mestre em Engenharia Civil

In recent years increased emphasis has been placed on improving seat comfort in automobiles. This is partly due to research showing that prolonged driving is associated with increased risk of musculoskeletal disorders, but largely because driver comfort is now viewed as an increasingly important aspect of the competitive marketing of vehicles. Driving is firmly cemented as a major part of most people s daily life across the world and people are now spending more time in their vehicles than ever before. As urban congestion continues to rise, commuting distances and durations will progressively increase, subjecting drivers to the risks of long duration driving more often. Consequently the automotive industry has invested in designing seats that perform better under increased usage durations and ergonomics has played a vital role in the design of new seats. However, the ability to design a successful seat relies heavily on the capacity to accurately evaluate the comfort of a vehicle seat and one major issue that has been highlighted with the current state of automotive ergonomics research is the standardisation of comfort evaluation techniques. This research aimed to tackle these issues by investigating the effects of long duration driving on discomfort and the range factors associated with driver discomfort. Furthermore, the ultimate goal of this research was develop and evaluate a novel objective measure of driver discomfort that focused on driver seat fidgets and movements (SFMs) with the aim of standardising discomfort evaluation within the automotive industry. Three laboratory studies and one field observation were conducted to address these aims whereby subjective and objective evaluations of discomfort were conducted during long term driving (ranging from 60 - 140 minutes). The results determined that a measure of driver SFMs can be effectively implemented into long duration driving trials to evaluate the effects of long term driving and vibration exposure on driver discomfort and subsequently used to make accurate predictions of overall discomfort. Large positive correlations have been determined between measures of SFMs and subjective ratings of overall discomfort (r2 > 0.9, P < 0.05) and the SFM method has been successfully repeated under a range of driving conditions. Driver seat fidget and movement (SFM) frequency is shown to significantly increase congruently with subjective ratings over the duration of a long term drive as drivers seek to cope with increased discomfort. It is proposed that drivers will record movements in the vehicle seat when discomfort reaches a threshold that is consciously or unconsciously perceived and as the duration of driving accrues, drivers will reach this threshold with increased frequency. A measure of both SFM frequency and total accumulative SFMs have been shown to accurately predict discomfort ratings and provides the basis for discomfort evaluations to be made via remote monitoring, removing the need for subjective assessment. During a long term drive, there becomes a point upon which improvements in seat design become ineffective as extended duration driving will result in discomfort regardless of how well the seat has been designed. It was shown that drivers will move in the vehicle seat to cope with increased discomfort and in addition, another method of combatting the negative effects of long term driving was investigated. Subjective and objective evaluation determined that breaks from driving will reduce discomfort both immediately and upon completion of a long term drive. Furthermore, these benefits were increased when drivers left the vehicle seat as discomfort was reset when drivers took a 10 minute walk. Walking during a break from driving can be considered the ultimate SFM. Drivers are recommended to plan breaks from driving when conducting a long duration journey in order to minimise discomfort and when taking a break, drivers should take a walk rather than remain seated in the vehicle.

During the last couple of years several studies have been conducted to investigate how children move and position during car rides. This in order to map when, and for how long children sit in positions that are not safe as well as to identify the reason for these movements. One of the conclusions is that children do not always sit comfortable in today’s belt-positioning boosters and thereby they chose positions that are unwanted for safety reasons. The aim for the master thesis has thereby been to improve seating comfort for children while traveling safely in the rear seat of a car. The target group has been children in ages 5-11 years old with body height 110-145 cm, a Swedish population 50 percentile has been used for the extreme dimensions. The master thesis process is divided in three phases; Discovery, Development and Testing and Evaluation. In the Discovery phase information in the areas child safety, child methodology and comfort was gathered through literature study, interviews with experts, benchmarking and a focus group with parents. As a final step customer needs were formulated. In the Development phase a workshop with children was initially performed to complement the customer needs with inputs from the users. The customer needs were afterwards reformulated into a specification of requirements and five comfort hypotheses. Finally a prototype was developed, designed from the requirements with the purpose to validate the comfort hypotheses, using an anthropometric design method (Osvalder, et al., 2010). In the final phase, Testing and Evaluation, the prototype and reference belt-positioning boosters were evaluated by children in two user studies; one static study and one on road study, to evaluate comfort features and try out different seating comfort evaluation methods. The result is divided into child seating comfort characteristics and child seating comfort methodology guidelines. To assist future development of belt-positioning boosters, seven comfort features are defined to help children ride comfortable in a safe position in the car. Furthermore, 13 child methodology guidelines are formulated to help further seating comfort evaluation with children. Conclusively to make children sit comfortable and safe positioned in the car they should be seated in a belt-positioning booster with headrest, backrest, seat cushion and foot support, the supporting parts need to be perceived as soft around head, back and under the buttock and all parts need to be dimensioned for all children in the target group. The size of the belt-positioning booster and the combination of foam thickness, foam hardness and shape are the main factors for affecting the perceived seating comfort. Furthermore, children shall be included as both design partners and testers during the development of belt-positioning boosters. During the prototype development static comfort evaluation with children should be done repeatedly to verify measurements, shape and foam hardness. To evaluate comfort both static evaluation and on road evaluation should be performed since comfort varies over time. Data should be collected subjectively from children through quantitative methods, such as rating scales, and qualitative methods, such as general questions regarding comfort/discomfort experience. Video observations can identify children’s position during car rides. Different positions can be timed and together with subjective data reasons for repositioning can be identified.

he master’s thesis consists of a case study of an observation tower design made of glue laminated timber and steel. There are two different tower shapes of anchored or free standing tower and these towers are compared. One of the design is chosen and elaborated into final detailing. A short review of main issues bound with the observation towers is given. The review deals mainly with loading (mainly priniples wind loads are analised) and evaluating of towers (ultimate limit states, service limit states and acceleration comfort). The height of final construction is up to 60m. The design is formed by a space lattice structure made of glue laminated timber and steel members of different class. The members are fastened mainly by means of dowel joints with slotted-in-plates . There is a light steel stairway inserted into the main structure.