Benchmarking and optimisation of automotive seat structures

Despite the long history of automotive design and legislation regarding occupant safety, there appears to be little design convergence in the implementation of automotive seating structures. This observation is likely due to compromise between contlicling design requirements including: envelope of motion, structural integrity, modularity, product cost and the cost and complexity of redesign and validation. A range of seating architectures are identified and compared to provide insight into these conflicting design requirements and to aid design optimisation.