Modelling of ergonomics and muscular comfort

Commercially available software packages permit to position human models of various geometries in practical scenarios while respecting the anatomical constraints of the skeletal joints and of the bulk of the bodies. Beyond su ch features, the PAM-Comfort (TM) software has been conceived to provide di rect access to the muscular forces needed by humans to perform physical act ions where muscle force is required. The PAM-Comfort (TM) human models are made of multi-body linked anatomical skeletons, equipped with finite elemen ts of the relevant skeletal muscles. The hyper-static problem of determinat ion of muscle forces is solved by optimisation techniques. Voluntary stiffe ning of muscles can be added to the basic contraction levels needed to perf orm a specific task. The calculated muscle forces obey Hill's model. The mo del and software have been applied in several interesting scenarios of vari ous fields of application, such as car industry, handling of equipment and sports activities.