Effects of seat parameters and sitters’ anthropometric dimensions on seat profile and optimal compressed seat pan surface

Abstract

Designing one seat for multi-sitters and multi-activities is challenging especially in a very restrained aircraft economy class cabin. In this paper, the effects of seat parameters and sitters' anthropometric dimensions on seat profile and optimal compressed seat pan surface were studied using a newly built multi-adjustable experimental seat. The 'optimal' seat pan contact surface was obtained by controlling the height of 52 cylinders so that the normal contact force was distributed to all cylinders as evenly as possible. With 13 other motorized adjustments controllable by a computer, individual seat profile in the symmetry plane such as seat height, seat pan length, seat pan angle, lumbar protrusion and headrest position were also studied. Data were collected from 36 men and women of varying body size testing 40 seat configurations. Parametric models were obtained for predicting seat profile and optimal compressed seat pan seat surface in function of seat pan and back rest angles for two sitting postures. It is expected that the proposed parametric models provide necessary reference values in seat development for a better fit of a target population of sitters with large varying body size.

A parametric investigation on seat/occupant contact forces and their relationship with initially perceived discomfort using a configurable seat

“…Due to small participant sample size, the findings regarding the effects of gender, stature and obesity on seating discomfort need to be further confirmed with more participants for each group. In addition to preferred seat profile parameters (Wang et al, 2018b), the present work A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t Table 1. Mean values of contact forces applied to the seat in the vertical direction z at the foot rest (FS), seat pan (SP), three back supports (LS, MS and UP) and two armrests (AR) in the seat global coordinate system by seat configuration for two sitting postures RLX (using the headrest) and LFW (without using the headrest A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t Table 2.…”

“…The present work is based on the same experiment as the one already presented in detail in the paper (Wang et al, 2018b), which focused on the analysis of seat geometry parameters.…”

“…Within a collaborative research A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t program developing future airline seats, the experimental seat was used to investigate the effects of sitter's anthropometry and seat parameters on seating comfort. The results defining the preferred seat profile and optimal compressed seat-pan surface have previously been published (Wang et al, 2018a(Wang et al, , 2018b. This paper reports the results on distribution of bodyseat contact forces and potential relationships between contact forces and perceived discomfort.…”

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

“…Hiemstra-van Mastrigt (2015) shows seat contours based on participants with carefully selected dimensions ( Figure 3). Wang et. al (2018) used cylinder pistons to create a contour profile based on an optimal pressure distribution ( Figure 2, Figure 3).…”

Objective and subjective evaluation of a new airplane seat with an optimally pre-shaped foam support

“…In order to provide quantitative guidelines for improving seat design, data of the preferred seat profile and compressed seat pan surface were collected in function of seat pan and backrest angle from a sample of differently sized participants using a reconfigurable experimental seat we built recently [2]. Parametric models were obtained to predict optimal seat profile parameters in function of a sitter's anthropometric characteristics, seat pan angle and seat back angle [3]. Using a population simulation approach, a sample of 500 males and 500 females were generated randomly based on the distribution of the CAESAR US civil population [4].…”