Improving comfort simulations of sleeping mattresses for IKEA

Sammanfattning: It is beneficial for a furniture company like IKEA to objectively and accurately evaluate what makes a mattress comfortable. But what defines comfort? IKEA currently investigates mattress comfort through extensive real-life user testing. Through which, six parameters of comfort have been identified. By measuring these parameters, one can get an idea of how comfortable a particular person will find a particular mattress. These parameters are a convenient tool in product development since they allow mattresses of different designs to be compared objectively. However, the mattress specific parameter values’ procurement requires user testing, which is an inherently slow process that creates a bottleneck in the product development cycle. To reduce this bottleneck, IKEA wants to use computer-simulations. By combining computer models of the human body with models of a mattress, full-scale so-called finite element (FE) simulations can be run. However, IKEA’s current computer models are neither accurate nor efficient, which is what this thesis aims to address. In this thesis, a major increase in accuracy and a 10x increase in efficiency has been achieved through fine-tuning of the computer models and certain simplifications made to the computerized model of the human body. The results of this thesis are computer models and methodology, which are usable in all future similar comfort simulations. If utilized correctly, the product developers now have a tool to accurately and efficiently establish whether or not a mattress is likely to be comfortable, without the need for extensive user testing.