A Unified Laboratory and Field Testing Approach of Marine Shock Mitigating Seats Available to Purchase

Marine shock mitigating seats have been shown to reduce fatigue and decrease the likelihood and severity of injury of seated persons –particularly when installed aboard high speed commercial or combatant planing craft. Not so clear is how the performance of such seating systems are characterized so informed decisions can be made as to which seats perform best in specific conditions. Standards do exist to help quantify the injury risks associated with exposure to repeated shock and whole body vibration. However, such methods are field test based and the results somewhat difficult to understand. Work by the authors is presented from their experiences in characterizing seat performance to different standards includingSed8(ISO 2631-5,1997), UK Ministry of Defense Protocol 1 (UK MoD, 2014) as well as members sitting on the new ISO TC108/SC4/WG18 subcommittee on Human Exposure to Mechanical Vibration and Shock, Testing of Shock Mitigating Marine Seats. A new method is presented that allows for results obtained by both field and laboratory seat testing to be related to injury risk and compared equally in meaningful, understandable and objective ways.