For a design of an office chair, the pressure distribution of human body load on the chair seat has to be known. This information is the key characteristic of an office chair. This thesis concerns a mechanical model, its implementation and simulation of a human body sitting on an office chair’s wooden seat cushion. Firstly, Autodesk Inventor is used for modelling the human body, and the seat cushion. Secondly, we use the finite element method to mesh the models. Thirdly, fixed support and gravity load for the models are applied. Finally, the pressure distribution on the contact area is simulated in Autodesk Inventor. The peak pressure comes out in the contact area between ischium and seat cushion, what matches results from former reports, based on the measure of the pressure distribution of the contact region between human body and seat cushion using many sensors. Furthermore one can see different sitting postures for different seating positions. Besides, the peak deformation of the seat cushion occurs at almost the same place as peak pressure does. The simulation anatomical based model may be a good and efficient tool to design an office chair seat cushion. The anatomical based design can reduce musculoskeletal disorders caused by office work.

This thesis provides a solution of the pressure distribution of different sitting postures on different people’s buttock when they are sitting on a chair. Solidworks and Autodesk Inventor are used to simulate this pressure distribution according to finite element method.