Design of an automobile seat with regulations using axiomatic design

Abstract

The automobile seat must satisfy various safety regulations for the passenger's safety. In many design practices, each component for an automobile seat is independently designed by concentrating on a single regulation. However, since multiple regulations must be considered in a seat design, there may be a design confliction among the various safety regulations. Therefore, a new design methodology is required for effective automobile seat design. The axiomatic approach is employed to consider multiple regulations. The independence axiom is used to define the overall flow of the seat design. Functional requirements (FRs) are defined by safety regulations, and components of the seat are classified into groups which yield design parameters (DPs). The classification is carried out to keep the independence in the FR—DP relationship. Components in the DP group are determined by using design of experiment (DOE) orthogonal arrays. Numerical analyses are utilized to evaluate the safety levels by using a commercial software system for non-linear transient finite element analysis.