OBJECTIVE EVALUATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMOTIVE SEATING COMFORT

摘要

The seating system is the largest direct interface to the costumer and is largely influencing thernsatisfaction of a driver with the car. However, in many cars mediocre seats are mounted andrneven premium car makers are struggling up to the last minute before the start of production inrnorder to achieve a convincing seating comfort. Several causes for this problem can bernobserved. The first one is that seating comfort is very often still considered very subjectivernand that only the driving assessment of experts in the very late stages of the productrndevelopment process is trusted and sensibly employed. The second major problem is thatrnseating comfort requires a multi-objective evaluation. A seat with good seating comfort has atrnleast to deliver good initial comfort, long-term comfort, side support, egress/ingress comfortrnand durability. Additionally, each one of these criteria requires many positive characteristics,rne. g. a good long-term comfort requires the right pressure distribution, a soft but solid posturernstabilisation, freedom for movement and braking etc. A third major problem arises from thernfact that some characteristics such as the damping and isolating characteristics are very hardrnto asses and directly influence the unconscious well-being of the driver and passengers.rnFinally it is a major problem that the seat is strongly influencing the design and appearance ofrnthe car interior. Therefore with each new generation of a car also a new design of the seatingrnsystem is desired by the product design department. Very often the whole seating comfortrndevelopment has to be repeated because of product design requirements such as shapernchanges or changes of important seams.rnThe key elements to overcome these difficulties are designated measurement methods whichrnallow assessing certain characteristics as objective as possible and a sensible developmentrnprocess for seating comfort. The paper presents such measurement methods together with anrnassessment system which combines these measurement methods sensibly as well as a provenrndevelopment process for seating comfort.