Generation of design alternatives of vertical passenger seat for standing cabin concept in commercial transport aircraft

Abstract

Standing cabin concept, whereby the passengers are transported during flight in their standing position, has been proposed as one of the measures to make flying more affordable to the mass public. The vertical seat, or also known as standing seat, is an essential element for the implementation of this new cabin concept as it will determine the compliance to the governing aviation regulations and also the level of safety and comfort for the passengers. Up until now however, there is no vertical seat design that has been approved for use inside the commercial transport aircraft cabin. Therefore, this study presents the generation of alternative designs for the vertical seat through the use of systematic engineering design methodology with the use of supporting design tools such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD) chart and Morphological Matrix. Five alternative concepts of the vertical passenger seat design have been developed for further assessment study to select the best one among them.