Study on Application of Massage Chair Arm Using CFRP and Evaluation of Massage Comfort
Morimasa NAKAMURA, Naoki KOTANI, Takashi MATSUOKA, Kazuhiko SAKAGUCHI and Hideshi KONDO
Abstract:The requirement for the massage chairs as a medical instrument has been increasing. So, it is necessary to improve some of the machine elements of the massage chairs so that they have a higher level of the massage comfort. It is especially expected that the mechanical properties of the massage chair arms will effect the massage comfort. In this paper, CFRP was used as a material for the arm part in order to make massage comfort higher and lighten the arm weight of the massage chair. And also, the massage comfort evaluation was investigated by using the fuzzy membership function. As a result, it was shown that the bending properties of arm material and the principal strain direction on the arm produced an effect on the evaluation for the massage comfort. In addition, it was determined that it was possible to predict massage comfort by using the multiple regression analysis. Key Words:Massage chair arm, CFRP, Fuzzy membership function, Massage comfort, Principal strain direction