A light weight car seat shaped by human body contour

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop a light-weight, comfortable seat. The idea is to shape a seat with a minimum of material by using the contour of the seated human. Twenty-five participants were asked to sit in a vacuum mattress placed on a wooden seat frame with similar angles as the car seat construction angles. They were instructed to sit in a comfortable position and perform driving movements. The mattress was then fixed, the contour scanned and digitised. All scans were superimposed giving input for a seat shell design made out of glass fibre laminate. The comfort experience of the shell was tested by 25 participants and compared with a standard BMW seat. The study shows that it is possible to create a rather comfortable seat using the human surface anatomy. However, more research on defining the specific form for the ideal shell is needed.

Comfort and pressure distribution in a human contour shaped aircraft seat (developed with 3D scans of the human body)

“…These studies [5,6,8] indicate that a large contact area between the seat and the human decreases the effect of discomfort perception. Therefore, the assumption is that developing an aircraft seat based on human contour could improve pressure distribution and accordingly increase comfort and decrease discomfort perception.…”

“…Several studies about the subject of the contact area and its relation to comfort have been conducted [5,6] and showed that pressure distribution of the human mass in the seat is one of the best objective methods of getting information about the perceived comfort/discomfort of subjects. Additionally, Franz et al [8] showed a method for developing a contour based seat in order to increase and subsequently improve the contact area.…”

Implementing spring-foam technology to design a lightweight and comfortable aircraft seat-pan

“…There are indications that a seat contour resulting in a large contact area is correlated to more comfort (Fang, 2016;Zemp, 2015;Looze, 2003;Franz, 2011). One way to achieve this would be to use soft foam in the cushion to let the foam follow the entire contour shape of the users buttocks.…”

“…However, this means using large volumes of foams; resulting in increased weight. Another option would be to use a shaped contour shell derived from the human body and use inflatable cushions to fill gaps between P5 female to P95 male (Franz et al, 2011). It can be assumed that any form of cushioning material can be used to produce a similar effect.…”

Influence of automobile seat form and comfort rating on willingness-to-pay

“…These research approaches have been aided by increases in computational power, as improved computational modelling techniques such as multi-body and finite element analysis have reduced time and cost of the development process that typically relied on testing prototypes (Verver et al, 2005). Moreover, such research has been linked to other design goals as vehicle level performance (Franz et al, 2011), and perhaps at a greater level, applicable to the industry (Gyi and Porter, 1999;Kamp, 2012).…”