Wall-C

CONTEXT
Of study
Design & Engineering Master’s programme is a joint programme by Tallinn University
of Technology and Estonian Academy of Arts to combine students from various
backgrounds to develop the framework for a strong interdisciplinary collaboration.
Besides gaining multi-disciplinary experience the students are gaining a firm
understanding of contemporary entrepreneurial process and practice with industrial
partners. The programme provides engineers and designers to combine in the design
process, managers to lead creative development teams integrating design and
technology, entrepreneurs to notice possibilities on the market for users.

Of the project
Design & Engineering 2013/2014 is focused on field of Medicine, investigating the
issues in healthcare design, including the needs of doctors, nurses, caretakers and of
course the patients. Creating better solutions for rehabilitation and treatment for
patients at hospitals as well as home care is the main aspect. To create a better
healthcare environment, students investigate and tried to improve several projects in
product development and service design.
Students investigate working flow at the departments of Põhja-Eesti Regionaalhaigla
to identify hospital life, systems and services. The aim of the research is to improve
medical care at the hospital with emphasis on safety and dignity. The project groups
conducted several visits to the hospital, interviewed by hospital staff and investigate
the hospital itself, also create interaction with several companies which could provide
assistance in their design process.

Design and Engineering’s project report. Autumn 2013

1

Team ……………………………………………………………………………………………………......3
Tutors ……………………………………………………………………………………………...……….3
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………….....4
User research …………………………….………………………………………………………….....5
Hands on research …………………………………………………………………………………...6
Existing Designs ..…….…………………………………………………………………………….....7
Wheelchair & Components ………………………………………………………….……….....8
Basic dimensions for wheelchair .…………………………………………….….………....10
Wheelchair Problems ..………………………………………………………………………......11
Characteristics to fulfill ..………………………………………………….……..………………13
Generating Sketches & Concept Ideas ……………………………………….………....14
Concept Selection ………………………………………………………………………………….17
Work in Progress ............................................................................................................19
Creating Process .............................................................................................................20
Prototyping …………………………………………………………………………………….……...21
Rendering ..........................................................................................................................23
Conclusion & Further Development….....................................................................24
Technical Data & Sheets ............................................................................................25


2

People Involved
The Team
Sema Aksu

Kristjan Jagomann

Guillaume Speurt

Ender Özgün

Architect
Turkey

Mechanical Engineer
France

Mechanical Engineer
Estonia

Mechanical Engineer
Turkey

The lecturers and consultants
Professor Martin Pärn, MA,
Estonian Academy of Arts

Head of Design in D&E
Martin Pärn, MA, Estonian
Academy of Arts

Ruth-Helene Melioranski, Lecturer, Tallinn University of Technology
Martin Pärn, MA, Estonian
Janno Siimar, Creative Director & Service Designer
Academy of Arts
Henrik Herranen, Researcher, Tallinn University of Technology
Janno Nõu, Designer


3

INTRODUCTION
Our content and the topic of the semester project consist of designing a product for
transporting the patients who are staying in the hospital from one place to another,
by the hospital staff.
Based on the aim; we conducted several visits to Põhja Eesti Regionaalhaigla
(Estonia´s Biggest Hospital) to observe the current situation about the patients,
doctors, nurses, caretakers and hospital itself.
From the visits and observations our group and head of the department; Prof.. Martin
Pärn agreed on usage of the wheelchairs would be a great pick to dig in and improve.
Therefore, our further interest is to be focused on wheelchairs and navigating them.
Initially we tried to analyse the object from every perspective possible, such as
hygiene, storage, usage from the patient and pusher perspective, protection and etc.
After the discussion and using design selection tools we came to the conclusion of an
interest in the practical storage of a wheelchair. On the further pages you will find
deeper content about the process.


4

USER RESEARCH
As mentioned in the introduction, the whole designing process began with the
observation of the environment and its users that are composed by the hospital staff,
the patients and the visitors.
After attending a general introduction of the hospital life at Põhja-Eesti
Regionaalhaigla; we were allowed to move into the buildings, to observe and to take
notes. There we realized several issues from interviews with the caretakers and
patients about the wheelchair and the usage of it.
General outcomes of the interviews and observations were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Wheelchairs are generally being used by caretakers
Patients learn quickly to use the wheelchair by themselves
Elderly patients show to have more drawbacks with using and navigation
As a design, some parts are harder to use, some are relatively easy
Storage of the wheelchairs is an issue to think more; even there were lost
wheelchairs no one knows where they were.


5

HANDS ON RESEARCH
Doing observations and interviews are crucial to start the research phase. Yet it is not
fully enough to understand the user experience. Hence we also paid a visit to Astangu
Disability Information and Resource Centre to examine the different types of
wheelchairs and had a chance to use them against the various road obstacles.
Interviewed with physical therapist in the centre to comprehend the behaviour and
needs of a typical wheelchair user. Additional equipment invested to understand their
daily requirements. This opportunity provides us to get to know the various
ergonomics, designs and materials of wheelchairs according to different needs.


6

EXISTING DESIGNS
Researching also means to investigate and examine existing wheelchair and transport
chair designs. It is crucial to present the most notable ones to compare our ideas and
concepts.


7

WHEELCHAIR & COMPONENTS
A wheelchair is a transportation system made up from many parts. Its complexity may
differ from one to another according to the option and degree of freedom it give as
well as the comfort and easy-to-use provided to the user.

Footrests
Support your feet and lower legs. They can be fixed, folding or swing-away and come
in many different styles.

Armrests
These are places to rest your arms when you’re not moving. They can be wraparound,
full-length or desk-length; fixed or height-adjustable; removable or flip-back. Fit is
important because armrest position can alter the way you propel your wheelchair.
Many individuals choose not to have armrests because they don’t like the way they
look or they get in the way of propulsion.


8

Wheel locks
They act as parking brakes to stabilize your wheelchair when you transfer to other
seats or want to remain in a particular spot. They may be push-to-lock or pull-to-lock,
positioned low or high on the wheelchair, and retractable or not, depending on what
the user finds easier. Wheel locks can get in the way during propulsion and add
weight to the wheelchair. For this reason many individuals choose not to have wheel
locks, relying on their hands to keep their chair still. Not having wheel locks can
increase the risk of the chair moving during a transfer, however, which you should
consider when making this decision.

Tires
Tires are most commonly air-filled (pneumatic) and therefore lightweight. They also
require maintenance and can puncture. If you maintain them, this is usually the best
choice. Pneumatic tires may instead be filled with solid foam inserts; these won’t
puncture but are slightly heavier and don’t perform as well. Solid tires are low-cost
and no-maintenance, but make for an uncomfortable ride and are not usually
recommended.

Backrest
Sling backrests are the most common, but provide little postural support. Adjustable
tension backrests can provide more support and can be adjusted over time. Rigid
backrests provide the best support, but may make it more difficult to collapse the
chair. The weight and height of the backrest are important. In general, the lighter the
better, with carbon fibre backrests are a nice option. If support is not needed, a lower
backrest is better as it does not get in the way of pushing

Cushions
Come in a huge and ever-changing array of different types and materials and
comprise a major topic unto itself. While pressure relief is an important consideration
when selecting a cushion, you should also keep in mind that you want a firm base
and a lightweight cushion. A firm base refers to feeling stable, not sliding on the
cushion when reaching for an object or propelling your chair.

Push-rims
There are a variety of push-rims with different friction coatings and shapes that may
assist with propulsion and reduce the risk of injury to the hand.


9

BASIC DIMENSIONS FOR WHEELCHAIR
To start designing we have to find a standard dimension suggest by some website
and organization of disabled people. These values should guarantee proper size and
comfort for most of the people, patient.
The current regular wheelchair and its components are evolving around similar
dimensions. And the reachability area of the user and its dimensions were crucial to
examine and fully understand the interaction of the movement with the environment
or the structure of the hospital.
Patients must be navigated easily in the hospital meaning; they have to reach the
wheelchair from bed or the opposite situation, they must be prevented to hit their
arms and legs to corridors, it has to have dimensions for wide range of heighted and
weighted people since they cannot be individual based designs due to hospital and
their huge range of patients.


10

THE WHEELCHAIR PROBLEMS
We made our selection of the simplest wheelchair, which is the most common and
spread around the world, holds on to 1933, Herbert A. Everest and HC Jennings
invention and of course that is widely being used in hospitals. We named out the
features that we consider problematic for both patients and nurses so our solution
will provide a real plus-value.

Main Problems:
1. Large wheel that can hit the nurses legs
2. General dimension of the wheelchair unfolded and space they consume
3. Time and process to fold the wheelchair is long and unnecessary complicated

Things to modify for the patient
1.
2.
3.
4.

General comfort
Wheelchair is way lower than the bed
Feet are exposed to obstacles
No space of additional equipment or personal objects


11

The Storage Problem

The Navigation Problem


12

CHARACTERISTICS TO FULFILL
Observing the wheelchair use in hospital environment where it can be an obstacle
itself in the corridors or in rooms and experiencing it by ourselves creates the list that
we can improve about it.

Care taker
1. Easy to push
2. No obstacle to the legs
3. Cleaning

Patient
1. Easy to sit in, and to leave it (from bed, standing)
2. Provide protection to the patient (safety issues)

Environment
1. Hospital: calm, logically planed, relatively quiet, secure
2. Flat floor: no big obstacle, mostly easy rolling surface, no slop
3. Open and closed door: Door came in front of the wheelchair, can be
dangerous
4. Hygienic issues: By definition a hospital is a place to get healthy and not to
develop new diseases. Germs have to be fought, the chair must be clean

Use
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Cleaning, easy for maintenance, anti-bacterial
Can be under the shower, water-proof materials
Easy maintenance, clean parts
Can be stored, easy to fold in the hospital rush during dealing with the patient
Absence of bag or hanging equipment; uncomfortable for patients, caretakers
Marked code; unable to identify the departments which own the wheelchair.


13

GENERATING SKETCHES & CONCEPT
IDEAS
After the certain goals had been set, we have moved to generating new ideas
according to the needs we set or being futuristic and thinking outside of the box.

CONCEPT 1
Concept 1 has been generated for solving the patience reach on wheelchair by
adjusting the seat height by pulling the handles which enables sliding mechanism.


14

CONCEPT 2
Concept 2 is relatively easier approach to store the wheelchairs as supermarket
trolleys. Solving storage problem by pushing them into each other is the key feature.
The correct angularity of the seats and profiles allow them to store by stacking them.

CONCEPT 3
Concept 3 is the first approach towards storage. It is side folded chair by the help of
bearings and shafts.


15

CONCEPT 4

Concept 3 has been generated due to messy environment of the hospital corridors
caused of the storing wheelchairs randomly or carefully.
The design has the hanger concept where you can hang the wheelchair on it and
have more space for the patients and doctors and the other equipment on the
corridor.

CONCEPT SELECTION

16

Since our team generated different ideas and concepts, it is crucial to follow one of
them and work on it. So the most logical solution was to rank them according to
certain criteria such as simplicity, material selection, user intervention, fold-ability and
mainly the problem that they solve.
Also about this design process, we evaluate the selection based on real time
interviews and observations. Based on the several interviews with the caretakers and
nurses whom deal the wheelchair highlighted as mentioned below;




Patience is quite intelligent to use it.
They don’t have major problems with the wheelchair.
Complaining about the obstacles, it occurred in the corridor

WALL-C & THE SOLVED PROBLEM
Wall-C is the compact wheelchair which is designed to fold in easiest way and store
by hanging it on the wall at hospitals efficiently. While storing will be more practical
and comfortable, navigate in the corridors with bed in hospital is also will stop being
a problem. After choosing the main concept, we moved on a detailed 3D designing
for the SOLIDWORKS environment to understand the mechanism fully and optimize
it. The design has changed a couple of times to require the optimum needs according
to the users need, comfort and technical requirements.


17

FOLDING

LOCKING

On this project the handle get a more important role than on regular wheelchair. In
addition of moving it is now meant to fold and lock the system on the wall.
As seen previously the chair is folded when it has hit a wall and the user keep pushing
it toward it. Here the locking idea was to use handle to guarantee the fixation on the
wall.
On the wall is a rode on which the handle is mounting. To lock the folded wheelchair
it is just necessary to turn the handle to the top.


18

WORK IN PROGRESS
THE START
To understand if the mechanism works or not, the easiest way is to start to build the
cardboard prototype which gives you the idea, feeling and the freedom to
manipulate the ideas to improve them.
From the cardboard we saw that our idea will work and it is really comfortable to fold
the wheelchair and with the right material selection it is easy to lift it and hang it.


19

CREATING PROCESS
To create a concept, firstly we have to determine which type of elements going to be
used and how they will behave through our conceptual idea. Therefore, testing in
real-scale is important and we started to build a wood structure for Wall-C project
where we studied in Mektory which belongs to our university. This was the first
prototype attempt for our concept. The idea of gaining more space for the patients’
usage not the wheelchairs is seen in real scale.


20

PROTOTYPING
From the first prototyping experience we understood that our structure will work. So
it was the time to move on more rigid structure. The second and final prototyping is
again conducted in Mektory, with aluminium profiles and tubes. We used driller,
grinder, rivet gun, and several different technics to build our product.


21


22

RENDERING


23

CONCLUSION & FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

As a conclusion, we can clearly say that idea itself covered the solutions that we
wanted to apply according to the problems we set during the research phase. You
can see on the images presented how much space had been saved and with the
different handle positions we can store many more wheelchairs than usual. As a
further development we have to work on a prototype and improve it mainly on
footrest part and the strength and deciding all parts material. Strength tests and real
user test will be conducted after reaching the optimal prototype.


24

TECHNICAL DATA & SHEETS


25

B

POS. QTY.:
DESCRIPTION:
NR.:
1
2 Square tube 40x20x2
2
2
Square tube 40x20x2
3
3
Square tube 60x40x2

LENGTH, ANGLE 1: ANGLE 2:
mm:
520
0.00
20.00
548
20.00
40.00
400
0.00
0.00

0

3
1

14

310

1

0°
3

8

483
520

3

2

871,29

11
4x
ALL
THRU

54

3

2

34

1

42
B
510,09

0

440
400

Drawing:

SECTION B-B

0

20

40

Material:

Tolerance:

ISO 2768

Aluminium alloy
Drawn:
Supervisior:
Date:

Welding Seams
2
Class:
C

Kristjan Jagomann
G. Speurt

Weight (kg):

2.43

Project

Wall-Chair, D&E 2013 spring

Title:

12.01.2014

Front wheel support

Sheet:

1/1

Format:

A4

Drawing number:

01.01.001

Scale:

1:5

Welding Seams
Class:
C

3

0

4
20 0

1

2

0 6,5
2

45°

401,28

0

7

31

°

135

0

39,50

141,50

50

6,

22

10 0

40

40

20 0

10 LL
A
3x RU
TH

Note:
* Other piece is symmetrical

486,21

Drawing:

POS. QTY.:
DESCRIPTION:
NR.:
1
1
Square tube 40x20x2
2
1
Square tube 40x20x2
3
1 Square tube 40x20x2
Tolerance:

Aluminium alloy

Supervisor:
Date:

Kristjan Jagomann
G. Speurt

Weight (kg):

ISO 2768

Materjal:

Drawn:

mm:
141.5
45.00
22.50
317
0.00
0.00
226.5
22.50
0.00
0.37

Project:

Title:

Back wheel support

12.01.14
Sheet:

1/1

Format:

A4

Drawing number:

01.01.002

Scale:

1:5

POS. QTY.:
DESCRIPTION:
NR.:
1
1
Round tube 22x2
2
1
Square tube 40x20x2

mm:
431.12
0.00
0.00
428
0.00
0.00

8

303

40
30
14
0

R3

3

81

22
20
0

325

428

20

15

119

10

150

TH

3
R3

RU

A

LL

Drawing:

2

1

Note:
*Internal bending radius 11mm
* Other piece is symmetrical

263

Material:

Tolerance:

ISO 2768

Aluminium alloy
Drawn:
Supervisior:
Date:

Welding Seams
Class:
2
C

Kristjan Jagomann
G. Speurt

Weight (kg):

0.37

Project


Title:

12.01.14

Seat handle

Sheet:

1/1

Format:

A4

Drawing number:

01.01.003

Scale:

1:3

Wall-C

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