Abstract
Keywords - Car seat, perceived comfort, show-room comfort, thermo-hygrometric comfort, seat design guidelines.
Abstract - During last years CRF developed a deep experience in the evaluation of perceived comfort. The seat, that has a great importance as regards vehicle perceived qualities, has been the system on which the bigger effort has been focused. So, the car seat static comfort, also called show-room comfort, and the thermo-hygrometric comfort have been explored and analytical methods have been developed, giving experimental data well correlated with subjective ratings.
By using these methods, CRF is able to predict the users perception, and to give the design guidelines in the early stage of the development. The evaluation of show-room comfort bases on the acquisition of body pressure distribution at the seat interface, and on the integrated analysis, in terms of stiffness, postural comfort and body wrapping, of backrest and cushion. The thermo-hygrometric comfort depends on the heat and water vapour exchange performances of the seat: these properties are measured with a heated and sweating human-shape mannequin.
Different seats have been analysed using these methods, and the results in terms of predicted user evaluation have been compared. All tested seats belong to small cars, but are different in terms of upholstery and padding materials, backrest and cushion spring platform design and technology.
Evaluation with CRF methods provides the seat ranking as regards the customer evaluation, and outlines guidelines to improve the overall perceived comfort.