Design Analysis and Fabrication of Race Car Seat to Increase Driver Comfort

TLDR: In this article, the authors presented a strategy to increase overall driver comfort in a race car by providing design proposals for a comfortable seat, as per norms and cockpit constraints, from which the design considerations for the driver's position were decided.

Abstract: The driver’s comfort and position are factors of utmost importance in motorsports, and these are key aspects in deciding the overall performance of a race car. This paper presents a strategy to increase overall driver comfort in a race car by providing design proposals for a comfortable seat. A prototype was built, as per norms and cockpit constraints, from which the design considerations for the driver’s position were decided. Vertebral and thigh impressions of four drivers were taken by using expandable two-part urethane foam. Three-dimensional scanning technique was used to convert these impressions into point cloud data. The data were refined to form surfaces of respective impressions. These scanned surfaces were converged to a single optimized seat design which was comfortable for all drivers. Using data acquisition (DAQ), a comparative study of lap timings was done on the experimental seat and existing seat design for validation. This methodology of seat design was implemented to improve driver performance. It was observed that from a graphical comparison of car’s timings on both seats, the timings of the car with existing seat design showed a steeper increase in timings than the car with new seating design.