Car Seat Research Articles

Perspectives of infant active play: a qualitative comparison of working versus stay-at-home parents

BackgroundParents play a key role in infant’s development through their interactions and the type of environment they provide to promote active play. The amount of time parents are able to spend with their infant is dependent on their working status, yet few studies have explored parent perception of their infant’s active play by working status. The purpose of this study was to explore parent perception of active play and compare responses between working and stay-at-home parents.MethodsTwenty-nine parents participated in this qualitative study by completing a one-time, in-person semi-structured interview based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Themes were developed and compared based on parental working status using a directed content analysis approach.ResultsAll parents believed active play could have a positive effect on their child’s development through physical, social and emotional, cognitive, and/or language and communication development. However, stay-at-home parents reported a broader impact of active play across these domains; whereas working parents most often referenced active play as impacting infant’s physical development. Social and emotional interactions were the highest reported form of active play among all parents. Additionally, all parents described similar barriers to increasing the time for active play. The most commonly reported barrier for all parents was time or schedule followed by care needs of the infant, environmental concerns, and need for restrictive devices (e.g., car seats). More stay-at-home parents than working parents reported the care needs of the infant as being a barrier. Recommendations for active play were not widely known amongst all parents, with a higher percentage of working parents reporting they would desire advice from a healthcare provider.ConclusionsWorking status of parents appears to have implications on perceptions of active play which in turn may influence infants’ development. Future studies should objectively assess the impact of parents’ working status on infant development and explore how gender of the parent may serve as a confounding variable.

Pediatric Medical Emergencies and Injury Prevention Practices in the Pediatric Emergency Unit of Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.

The epidemiology and presence of pediatric medical emergencies and injury prevention practices in Kenya and resource-limited settings are not well understood. This is a barrier to planning and providing quality emergency care within the local health systems. We performed a prospective, cross-sectional study to describe the epidemiology of case encounters to the pediatric emergency unit (PEU) at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya; and to explore injury prevention measures used in the population. Patients were enrolled prospectively using systematic sampling over four weeks in the Kenyatta National Hospital PEU. Demographic data, PEU visit data and lifestyle practices associated with pediatric injury prevention were collected directly from patients or guardians and through chart review. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics with stratification based on pediatric age groups. Of the 332 patients included, the majority were female (56%) and 76% were under 5 years of age. The most common presenting complaints were cough (40%) fever (34%), and nausea/vomiting (19%). The most common PEU diagnoses were upper respiratory tract infections (27%), gastroenteritis (11%), and pneumonia (8%). The majority of patients (77%) were discharged from the PEU, while 22% were admitted. Regarding injury prevention practices, the majority (68%) of guardians reported their child never used seatbelts or car seats. Of 68 patients that rode bicycles/motorbikes, one reported helmet use. More than half of caregivers cook at potentially dangerous heights; 59% use ground/low level stoves. Chief complaints and diagnoses in the PEU population were congruent with communicable disease burdens seen globally. Measures for primary injury prevention were reported as rarely used in the sample studied. The epidemiology described by this study provides a framework for improving public health education and provider training in resource-limited settings.

Textile Antenna for Bio-Radar Embedded in a Car Seat.

A bio-radar system is presented for vital signs acquisition, using textile antennas manufactured with a continuous substrate that integrates the ground plane. Textile antennas were selected to be used in the RF (Radio Frequency) front-end, rather than those made of conventional materials, to further integrate the system in a car seat cover and thus streamline the industrial manufacturing process. The development of the novel substrate material is described in detail, as well as its characterization process. Then, the antenna design considerations are presented. The experiments to validate the textile antennas operation by acquiring the respiratory signal of six subjects with different body structures while seated in a car seat are presented. In conclusion, it was possible to prove that bio-radar systems can operate with textile-based antennas, providing accurate results of the extraction of vital signs.

Car Safety Seat Checkup

Patient Education| 2021 Car Safety Seat Checkup Connected Content Translation: Revisión de asientos de seguridad para el automóvil Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Car Safety Seat Checkup. Pediatric Patient Education 2021; 10.1542/peo_document130 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All AAP SitesAll PublicationsPediatric Patient Education Search Advanced Search Topics: car seats Using a car safety seat correctly makes a big difference. Even the right seat for your child’s size must be used correctly to properly protect your child in a crash. Here are car safety seat tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Never place a rear-facing car safety seat in the front seat of a vehicle that has a front passenger airbag. If the airbag inflates, it will hit the back of the car safety seat, right where your baby’s head rests, and could cause serious injury or death.The safest place for all children younger than 13 years to ride is in the back seat regardless of weight and height.If an older child must ride in the front seat, a child in a forward-facing car safety seat with a harness may be the best choice. Be sure you move... © 2019 American Academy of Pediatrics. All rights reserved. You do not currently have access to this content.

An Illustrative Review of Positional Asphyxiation in Infants Secured Upright in Car Seats

Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) includes the full spectrum of all causes of infant death, which include “Determined” causes [e.g. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) at 42% and Accidental Suffocation and Strangulation at 24%], as well as “Undetermined” causes at 34% [1]. Literature is replete with studies that address the risk factors associated with SIDS, accounting for at least 42% of infant mortality,[1] but scarcely do published reports address risk factors associated with Positional Asphyxia (PA).This illustrative narrative addresses the 2.8 – 3.0% (98-105) healthy infants who have no pre-existing medical conditions, including prematurity, who die from SUID primarily in car seats, and whose suspected cause of death is PA. Webster’s Dictionary defines PA as, “A condition of deficient oxygen supply to the body which occurs when a person’s physical position prevents adequate breathing.” This tragic phenomenon is suspected when the autopsy of an infant reveals no discovery of a traumatic injury, when there is no pre-existing medical pathology, and when the cause of death is determined to be “Undetermined or Unknown.”

Toward on integrally-formed knitted fabrics used for automotive seat cover

Knitting forming is an advantage and distinguishing feature of knitting technology. The development of three-dimensional (3D) shaped technology and equipment, making knitted fabrics gradually developed from clothing domain to the industrial field. The automotive industry is one of the biggest markets for industrial textiles. Recently, most car seat covers in domestic market are made by cutting-and-sewing process, while, integrally-formed car seat covers are greatly far from commercial products. Therefore, this paper describes four knitting techniques for producing 3D shaped fabrics, and studies the knitting process of two types of 3D shaped geometries derived from car seat models. In present study, three-dimensional cutting method is used to unfold the two shapes in different ways and two knitting directions of one cutting method for individual 3D geometry are selected to knit on a Stoll computerized knitting machine. A mathematical relationship between 3D geometry and 2D unfolded shaping is established. After the shaping of each part is calculated, the program is made by the Pattern Preparation Unit and the knitting process is completed. The influence of two shaping techniques on the mechanical properties of the fully-fashioned fabric is evaluated, and it is found that compared with transferring-stitches technique, partial-knitting technique has superior mechanical properties. This study provides guides and references for the integrated automotive seat covers.

TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child

Patient Education| 2021 TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child Connected Content Translation: TIPP—8 años: La seguridad de su hijo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child. Pediatric Patient Education 2021; 10.1542/peo_document307_en Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All AAP SitesAll PublicationsPediatric Patient Education Search Advanced Search Subjects: TIPP - The Injury Prevention Program Topics: bicycle safety, car seats, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, chest, child visitation, cushions, eye protection, firearms, first aid, foot Did you know that injuries are the greatest threat to the life and health of your child? Injuries are the leading cause of death of school-aged children. Yet you can prevent most injuries! At age 8, children are now taking off on their own. They look to friends for approval. They try to do daring things. They may not want to obey grown-up rules. But your child can learn safety rules with your help and reminders. Your child now goes out more without you and could drown, be hurt on a bike, or be hit by a car. And your child still can be hurt or killed while riding in a car if he or she is not buckled by a seat belt in a belt-positioning booster seat. Ask your doctor which sports are right for your child. Be... © 2019 American Academy of Pediatrics, Updated 08/2021. All rights reserved. You do not currently have access to this content.

TIPP—6 to 12 Months: Safety for Your Child

Patient Education| 2021 TIPP—6 to 12 Months: Safety for Your Child Connected Content Translation: TIPP—De 6 a 12 meses: La seguridad de su hijo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation TIPP—6 to 12 Months: Safety for Your Child. Pediatric Patient Education 2021; 10.1542/peo_document305 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All AAP SitesAll PublicationsPediatric Patient Education Search Advanced Search Subjects: TIPP - The Injury Prevention Program Topics: asphyxia, burns, car seats, choking, common cold, cribs, death, drowning, food, infant walkers Did you know that hundreds of children younger than 1 year die every year in the United States because of injuries — most of which can be prevented? Often, injuries happen because parents are not aware of what their children can do. Your child is a fast learner and will suddenly be able to roll over, crawl, sit, and stand. Your child may climb before walking, or walk with support months before you expect. Your child will grasp at almost anything and reach things he or she could not reach before. Because of your child's new abilities, he or she will fall often. Protect your child from injury. Use gates on stairways and doors. Install operable window guards on all windows above the first floor. Remove sharp-edged or hard furniture from the room where your child plays. Do not use... © 20192019 American Academy of Pediatrics. All rights reserved. You do not currently have access to this content.

Large Hairless Mammals

Large Hairless Mammals Rebecca Saltzman (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Sam Farkas, NOAA Daphne and Thiago move to Florida in the radiant swell of August, when she is still bleeding. The birth, four weeks ago, did not go well. She shoved the resident physician to the floor, and that wasn't even the worst [End Page 130] [End Page 131] of it. Now the baby is here. Dough punched with eyes. She unbuckles him from the car seat and reassures herself: He'll get cuter. At their new apartment complex, flamboyant date palms flank banana-colored buildings. There is a bright blue swimming pool. When Daphne carries the car seat to their front door, brown lizards skitter away from her feet. The apartment has tall, thin windows. Just below the ceiling, a gecko glues its toes to the drywall like little loamy stars. The unit is smaller than it looked in the photos. But clean; Thiago is starting his PhD in geology, and this was the only place they could afford that wasn't a mold colony painted over in eggshell white. Thiago unpacks the car: a Pack 'n Play, a white noise machine with six soothing varieties of nature sound, Daphne's oil paintings, and his collection of luminous geodes. Daphne thinks about the doctor and feels a secret, guilty pride. She had never before been a person who shoved. In the bathroom, she pees and tends to the blood, which at first left Rothko-like stains on the bedsheets and has now tapered to a soft, ferrous brown. She thankfully no longer requires the mesh panties and brick-sized pads from the postpartum ward. On the other hand, she still needs to rub A&D ointment on her asshole. This was something no one told her about having a baby—that you'd leave the hospital in diapers, with an A&D-slicked asshole. Thiago has left the welcome folder from the apartment manager by the sink. She thumbs past the lease and the pizza coupons, stops on a brochure: See Manatees in Crystal River! On the cover, a bristle-nosed manatee swims in emerald water. When she was a child, her mother refused to take any tropical vacations, scheduling family trips around the art exhibits she wanted to see in gloomy Northern cities. But once, her mother took her to a conference in Florida, promised she could choose how to spend their last day. She picked out a similar manatee brochure in the hotel lobby. This, she said. But she never got to see the manatees. Instead, they spent the appointed day in the local emergency room receiving IV fluids and Zofran for a violent case of gastroenteritis, most likely contracted, the ER pediatrician said, from the hotel breakfast buffet. She traces the round figure of the brochure manatee, its body like her own postpartum shape—but while the manatee's is gloriously buoyant, hers feels heavy with gravity. [End Page 132] The baby is crying. Daphne has briefly forgotten, while thinking of the shitting vacation, that there is a baby at all. "He wants you," Thiago calls. In the bathroom, where no one can hear, she sighs. ________ They set up the Pack 'n Play in the bedroom. The baby, swaddled inside, is a little Moses with severe infant acne. His fontanel pulsates. It would be so easy to press her thumb in the membrane. A terrible thing for a mother to imagine. But a baby skull is like this, with a keyhole for angels. Their Zippy Pod from New York won't arrive for two more days, and they didn't pack a bed. Their furniture was the variety that gets assembled from particle board with an Allen wrench, not worth schlepping. Only Thiago's creaky metal futon from college survived the cull. Some kind of bromantic attachment, she suspects, brought into sharper relief by the wet, screaming presence of a newborn. They turn on the white noise machine to help the baby sleep. In the darkness, Thiago curls up next to her. He has always been a good big spoon. But his hand moves near her breast, and the...

Research on seat perceived comfort evaluation based on factor analysis

Car seat is one of the most important parts of the direct contact with consumers, consumers' subjective perception of seat comfort depends on the choice of car, and the automobile industry in the perception of car seat comfort evaluation and research work, is still in its infancy, convened by the project through to the six major cities, 900 consumers respectively for 18 to subjective comfort evaluation of standard models, this article selects three same level models of standard models, for example, through the factor analysis method to calculate the subjective comfort ratings, and use the objective measurement data of subjective rating transverse comparison test. The results show that the subjective comfort score can reflect the comfort degree of the seat.

Modeling and analysis of car seat rubber bush using CATIA for reducing vibration in passenger engine vehicles

The fatigueness due to the long driving by the driver in the passenger vehicle like car is experienced due to the low frequency vibration occurring in the IC engines. It is been mainly occurring in the driver seat and hence to reduce the vibration transferred to the driver through the seat. The car seat has been measured with the amount of vibration magnitude and the analysis of seat structure using the CATIA. The modeling of the seat bush is done by using the 3D printer three different type of car seat bushes is made with the nylon, ABS and polyurethane the material properties like the tensile and hardness are tested and in addition to it the dynamic characteristics of the stiffness and damping properties are studied using the CATIA and the properties are compared.

A 29-day-old Infant with Poor Feeding and a Rash.

1. DeAnna J. Friedman-Klabanoff, MD* 2. James D. Campbell, MD, MS* 1. *Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 1. Address correspondence to DeAnna Friedman-Klabanoff, MD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, 685 W Baltimore St, Room 480, Baltimore, MD 21201. E-mail: defriedman{at}som.umaryland.edu At postnatal day 29 in early April, a female infant presents to an outside emergency department with her mother because of poor feeding. Her mother states that she just noticed a new area of redness and a lump on her neck as she was taking the infant out of her car seat (Fig 1A). She had no fevers at home. Her mother states that she was born at 34 weeks’ gestation via cesarean delivery due to prolonged premature rupture of membranes. During her 2-week stay in the NICU, she had bradycardia spells, but no need for intubation or antibiotics. No one in her family has been ill before her presentation. Figure 1. (A) Appearance of cellulitis upon presentation to the outside emergency department and (B) 4 hours later upon arrival to our pediatric intensive care unit. On initial assessment, the infant is lethargic and ill appearing with intermittent apnea and oxygen desaturations down to 80%, eventually requiring intubation. On physical examination, she has an area of well-circumscribed erythema overlying her right sternocleidomastoid muscle with underlying indurated nodules. She receives 30 mL/kg of normal saline for tachycardia and delayed capillary refill, and intravenous ampicillin and cefotaxime for presumed sepsis. Her white blood cell count is 10.8 × 103 cells per microliter with 60% segmented neutrophils and 28% bands. Her complete blood cell count is otherwise unremarkable. Her C-reactive protein is 121 mg/L. She is transferred to a tertiary referral hospital for further evaluation and management. On arrival to the PICU, she is hypothermic to 93.2°F (34°C). She undergoes lumbar puncture. The cell count shows 8 white blood cells per high-power field, which …

TIPP—6 Years: Safety for Your Child

Patient Education| 2021 TIPP—6 Years: Safety for Your Child Connected Content Translation: TIPP—6 años: La seguridad de su hijo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation TIPP—6 Years: Safety for Your Child. Pediatric Patient Education 2021; 10.1542/peo_document306_en Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All AAP SitesAll PublicationsPediatric Patient Education Search Advanced Search Subjects: TIPP - The Injury Prevention Program Topics: bicycle safety, car seats, chest, cigarettes, craniocerebral trauma, fire - disasters, fire - physical phenomenon, fire safety, firearms, foot Did you know that injuries are the greatest threat to the life and health of your child? Injuries are the leading cause of death of school-aged children. Yet you can prevent most major injuries! At age 6, your child will become more independent. He or she will be able to do more things that are dangerous. Your child will try to prove that he or she is grown up. But children still aren’t good at judging sound, distance, or the speed of a moving car at this age. Your child can learn a few simple things to do for protection, but you must still be in charge of his or her safety. Make an escape plan in case of fire in your home. Your fire department can tell you how. Teach your child what to do when the... © 2019 American Academy of Pediatrics, Updated 08/2021. All rights reserved. You do not currently have access to this content.

TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child

Patient Education| 2021 TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child Connected Content Translation: TIPP—8 años: La seguridad de su hijo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation TIPP—8 Years: Safety for Your Child. Pediatric Patient Education 2021; 10.1542/peo_document307 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All AAP SitesAll PublicationsPediatric Patient Education Search Advanced Search Subjects: TIPP - The Injury Prevention Program Topics: bicycle safety, car seats, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, chest, child visitation, cushions, eye protection, firearms, first aid, foot Did you know that injuries are the greatest threat to the life and health of your child? Injuries are the leading cause of death of school-aged children. Yet you can prevent most injuries! At age 8, children are now taking off on their own. They look to friends for approval. They try to do daring things. They may not want to obey grown-up rules. But your child can learn safety rules with your help and reminders. Your child now goes out more without you and could drown, be hurt on a bike, or be hit by a car. And your child still can be hurt or killed while riding in a car if he is not buckled by a seat belt in a belt-positioning booster seat. Ask your doctor which sports are right for your child. Be sure your child... © 20192019 American Academy of Pediatrics. All rights reserved. You do not currently have access to this content.

Combined with finite element analysis of car seat safety performance improvement

Neck injuries caused by low-speed rear-end collisions are a worldwide problem. The reasonable design of car seat can effectively prevent or reduce the passenger neck injuries. In this paper, the finite element analysis (FEA) and whiplash test are combined to optimize the seat structure parameters to enhance the safety. The whiplash test results of the existing car seats according to C-NCAP (2015) were matched with FEA, and the optimization scheme was developed by computer simulation. For the improvement of seat safety, the optimizations are applied to determine backrest stiffness, backrest rotational stiffness, headrest rotational stiffness and headrest stiffness. The retest results of optimized seat show that its safety performance is greatly improved. Furthermore, it shows that the combination of finite element analysis and whiplash test can optimize seat structure to improve safety performance.

A Forgery

A Forgery Rachel Cusk (bio) My husband had an operation, and for a while afterward he thought he would die. Because of circumstances he had to go through the ordeal alone. He returned from the hospital with a bag attached to the outside of his stomach for the feces to collect in and he had to empty this bag several times a day, as well as three or four times during the night, on his knees in front of the toilet bowl so that soon big, hard callouses had formed on the skin there. But in hospital he had seen that worse things happen to other people. With these nightly disruptions, for the first time in his life he lost the ability to sleep. I told him that years before, when I myself first lost the ability to sleep through the night, I had adopted the practice of retracing a journey to try to find my way back into unconsciousness. It was always the same journey: from the house in the English village to which we had moved from the United States when I was a child, to the local market town. This journey of seven or so miles was one I had observed regularly through the windows of the back seat of the family car in the period immediately following [End Page 242] our arrival. At a certain point we moved to a different house in another village and no longer took that road to the town. But when I thought about it all those years later, I found that I recalled it perfectly. Each time I went over it, lying awake in the dark, I exacted more detail from myself. I traveled more and more slowly, partly because I knew that if I ever reached the market town it would mean my strategy had failed and that I was still awake. But no matter how slowly I went, my memory was always able to supply the matching images. It was a kind of test, as though of the significance of my own history, like the lists of important dates or the names of kings and queens that a schoolchild is required to learn by heart. My husband was surprised to hear that I had done this, and so for the first time I considered why, in fact, I had. The journey from the village house to the market town had no particular interest or point of exception: it was boring, and this must have been the reason I had thought it would send me to sleep. What I had never considered was the quality of the attention my child-self had paid to it. I had known I could rely on that attention, all those years later, as on a space or location inside myself where the details of the journey were stored. Pain and fear, as well as self-disgust, had changed my husband's character. He no longer felt the benevolence that once had flowed from his trust in life. That phrase—"trust in life"—was one he had used. He no longer contained the beneficence and joyfulness that for him had generally arisen from the condition of being alive. The memory of his time in hospital, and of the anguish he had experienced there, oppressed and exhausted him. Certain details—the frightful noises made by the patient in the next-door bed who refused to get up and simply soiled himself where he lay, the leather trousers worn by the surgeon on the morning after the operation when he came to deliver fateful news at my husband's [End Page 243] bedside, the male nurse who had stayed awake with my husband all night after the surgery, rocking him to ameliorate the effects of the anesthetist's mistake and talking of the Sicilian village from which he came—were, it seemed, indelible. Had he not been alone, had I been there to see it all with him, their power might have been less. For me, these details adhered to the recognizable pattern by which life attains its neutral balance—a general debt of mediocrity, failure and malfeasance, all redeemed by one outstanding action—but for...

Automation of the one-storey underground parking space organization

With the growing car population in big cities, the problem of its keeping in conditions of a compact urban area has happened. The organisation of parking space in a different way has resolved this issue. Underground parking was in demand in many countries even in the XX century. By the way, they are becoming more and more popular now. The design of car parking is based on legal documents, which regulate the size of car parking seats and the width of the passage inside the garage. It is expedient to use evolutionary algorithms as one of the tools of algorithmic modelling for automation of design the car parking lots and for identifying the most effective and profitable way of the car parking space planning. So, the process of looking for the most optimal solution in underground car parking designing.

Preliminary study on perceived comfort of car seats: A quantitative approach to visual cues

The automotive industry is transitioning towards a more digital future - not just the digitalization of the product itself but also the process of customer interaction, such as during the product selection process. In the product selection process, companies are enabled to collect and analyze large amounts of customer and usage data but are also challenged to understand the gathered digital data. In designing physical components, analyzing, and understanding such data can provide a competitive advantage. In gaining deeper insight into the digital selection process of cars and for understanding customers preferences related to perceived comfort of car seats, we applied a visual appearance study by presenting digital information of physical components.

Manufacture of polyurethane foam parts for automotive industry using FDM 3D printed molds

Metal molds have traditionally been used in the manufacture of polyurethane foam parts. This type of molds presents several disadvantages: have a high cost; need a long time for their manufacture; involve the use of release agents during the demolding operation. As an alternative, the use of molds manufactured by fused deposition modeling is proposed. These 3D printed molds have a poor surface finish, which complicates the demolding operation. To overcome this handicap, materials that can be chemically polished have been studied: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and high impact polystyrene. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene can be polished by exposure to acetone vapors and high impact polystyrene by immersion in limonene. This post-processing operation allows to reduce the surface roughness of the 3D printed mold. To simulate the industrial use of the mold, seven molding-demolding cycles have been performed. To measure the ease of demolding of each material, a pull-off test has been used. The results indicate that high impact polystyrene has less affinity with polyurethane foam than acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. In addition, although release agent is used in cycle 1, with high impact polystyrene specimens, it is not necessary to use it in cycles 2, 3 and 4; this means a saving of release agent. Furthermore, the chemical polishing of high impact polystyrene by immersion in limonene has several advantages: it is performed in a short time; it allows to obtain an excellent finish regardless of the initial surface roughness; it is done using a biodegradable solvent of organic origin. To experimentally demonstrate the viability of the proposed solution, a mold for the back of a car seat has been printed in high impact polystyrene via fused deposition modeling and chemically polished by immersion in limonene (1min); the geometrical deviations generated were less than 1mm.

Evaluation of Car Seat Comfort Based on Relation between Seat Pressure Characteristics and Physiological Indices

Evaluation of Car Seat Comfort Based on Relation between Seat Pressure Characteristics and Physiological Indices