Redesign of the standard bicycle seat to prevent male impotence

Standard bicycle seats inflict injury to the perineum, the center for arteries and nerves feeding the penis, through repeated compression loading. Though harmless in low cycles of loading, the result for many high-mileage, male riders is sexual dysfunction. Recum­bent bicycle seats prevent damage to the perineum by shifting the compressive loads to other parts of the anatomy. The object of this project was to design an upright bicycle seat that gave the same benefits as recumbent seats in terms of protection of male sexual functionality. A seat design utiliz­ing similar principles of the recumbent seat and preventing damage to the perineum was proposed. This design maximized stability and comfort, while maintaining the rider's abil­ity to generate pedaling power. Additionally, a streamlined process for rapid prototyping of bicycle seats was developed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Sandhu, Jaspal Singh, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peter Griffith.

• Mechanical Engineering

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9770

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/9770