Comfort model for automobile seat

Abstract

Comfort on automobile seats is lived daily by thousands of drivers. Epistemologically, comfort can be understood under the theory of complexity, since it emerges from a chain of interrelationships between man and several elements of the system. This interaction process can engender extreme comfort associated to the feeling of pleasure and wellbeing or, on the other hand, lead to discomfort, normally followed by pain. This article has for purpose the development of a theoretical model that favours the comfort feature on automobile seats through the identification of its facets and indicators. For such, a theoretical study is resorted to, allowing the mapping of elements that constitute the model. The results present a comfort model on automobile seats that contemplates the (physical, psychological, object, context and environment) facets. This model is expected to contribute with the automobile industry for the development of improvements of the ergonomic project of seats to increase the comfort noticed by the users.

The effects of the seat cushion contour and the sitting posture on surface pressure distribution and comfort during seated work

“…The proper foam minimizes the concentration of pressure beneath the tuberosities and achieves a more suitable pressure distribution. A greater uniformity on pressure distribution and a lower peak pressure implied an improvement of the user's comfort on the seat [24]. From this perspective, C3 and C1 had better pressure distributions and comfort perceptions than C0 for the upright sitting posture as per Figure 8.…”

The visual categorization of production automotive seats on descriptors of comfort

“…These results were also consistent with the previous study of Kamp (13) and Coelho & Dahlman (22); where participants associated width and softer materials with luxurious car seats. Specifically the effects reported for the three variables in this study should be utilized to build on the theorized comfort models for automobile seats, where the Sporty variable was not listed in the indicators of the "facet of the object" (11). Furthermore it can be proposed that the indicators listed which were identified from literature can be assessed if they are truly determinants of the expected comfort based on visual appearance.…”

“…The "think dimension" relied on functional properties and "feel dimension" on emotions and self-expression attributes. In contrast to theorized comfort model for automotive seats by da Silva et al (11) which had 5 facets where both comfort and discomfort descriptors were deduced from studies in literature, the card sorting enabled end users category label their comfort experiences directly associating to the cluster of comfort descriptors. Focusing on the aesthetical appearance design, the descriptors and the categorizations reflected certain physical features of automotive car seat as design cues.…”

Development of Comfort and Safety Performance of Passenger Seats in Large City Buses

“…A general equation, Equation (1), is used to describe the relationship between the position of a local coordinate system and the global coordinate system, where X i is the matrix of the coordinates of the position vector, r i is the matrix of the coordinates of the vector joining the beginnings of both coordinate systems, A i is the matrix of direction cosines, and x i is the matrix of the coordinates of the vector of local displacement of the coordinate system.…”

“…Seating comfort is one of the most important indicators of automotive seat performance [1][2][3]. Around the world, there have been many studies on seating comfort, including car seats, truck seats [4], and bus and train seats [5].…”