Office Chair Design and Ergonomic Principles
2010
Edgars Kirilovs, Gints Upītis

Working on design of the office chair it is important to remember that sitting is not just a static process. Taking into consideration the different postures while sitting, and the ongoing muscle activity, it is a dynamic process where the body's stability is provided not only by the chair, but also by legs, feet and back being in contact with other surfaces. By evaluating the nature of the seating process, designers have admitted that to design a chair it is important to use carefully selected ergonomic data that are discussed in this article. But you can not forget that in order to create a chair that could provide stability and seated comfort, it is necessary to know and comply with the anthropometric chair design aspects and their compliance with the biomechanical and ergonomic requirements. As key parameters to be used in chair design are considered chair height, depth, width, backrest height, height of handles and cross-space. Taking into consideration the previously mentioned parameters and high count of complaints from the office workers about the back pain, there are made innovative chairs with tridimensional body movement possibilities that is based on dondola mechanism that’s main purpose is to diminish the wrong movements and muscle strains in sitting process that is considered to be very dynamic process. One of the first ones who offered such chair in the market are German companies “Wagner” and “Wiege”. Sitting in such chair for eight hours, all muscle groups are used that diminishes the back pain and discomfort and lets the worker focus more on the work and increases the work efficiency.


Keywords
ergonomics, support, chair depth, chair height, backrest, handles,

Kirilovs, E., Upītis, G. Office Chair Design and Ergonomic Principles. Material Science. Textile and Clothing Technology. Vol.5, 2010, pp.82-87. ISSN 1691-3132.

Publication language
Latvian (lv)
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