Design and Fabrication of a Spine profile based anti-flexion support vest for Off-road vehicle drivers

The present conditions of ATV's in competition oriented events like SAE-BAJA and SAE-SUPRA, as well as their increased usage in North America, demands for high performance. The straightforward and ingenious way is to reduce the overall vehicle weight by selection of stronger and lighter materials or by shortening of the roll cage which also helps in greater maneuverability. This greatly impacts the driver ergonomics of seating and egress/ingress in case of emergency. The area of interest is the repeated feedback about lower back pain from the drivers of previous year teams of SAE-Baja India as well as an increased reporting of spinal fractures and dislocation in extreme off-roading scenarios; part of which is directly related to abnormal driving postures due to packaging of driver in roll cage and repeated shocks and yaw-pitch-roll induced inertial forces on the driver during harsh driving. This research is an approach to reduce these forces or dissipate them to protect the spine from injuries and shielding the driver from driving induced back pain