Proactive Ergonomic Design of a Tourist Submarine: User-Centered Approach Through Digital Human Modeling

Design and development of tourist submarines are limited all over the world. Being a safety critical workspace, the ergonomic design of the interior of the submarine is crucial to ensure effective occupant packaging for both the passengers and crew members (pilots, sonar and navigation operators, cabin crews, etc.). Current study aims to develop and validate a CAD model of a tourist submarine from user centric design perspective using Digital Human Modeling (DHM) and simulation. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model of the submarine was developed using SolidWorks software. Three (03) percentile manikins, namely 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile, representing small, medium, and large body dimensions of Indian adult population were created using Catia (V5R21) software and interfaced with the CAD model of the submarine to evaluate various human factor (HF) issues including sitting comfort, space layout, clearance/ interference dimensions, vision, ingress/egress and reach. Comfort angles of different body joints of the DHM were implemented and color coded to show comfort/discomfort of body joints during adopting different working postures. The passenger and Helmsman cabins’ layouts were finalized based on the number of occupants and interior dimensions. The final CAD model validated through DHM would ensure better user compatibility and possibility of extended trips of the passengers by providing better user-experience through ease of ingress-egress, seating comfort, optimal visibility through windows, unhindered movement and avoiding collisions with the components of submarine interiors. It is expected that the ergonomic design of the submarine is virtual environment would minimizing design costs by reducing the need for physical mock-ups and human trials.