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| Author: Ben Miller | Team: Solar Car’‘’ |
When initially getting familiarized with the solar car project, it was noted from pictures that a seat did at one time exist. It appeared to be a composite design that bolted to a belly pan on the bottom. The whereabouts of this seat are unknown - thus requiring the design of a new one. The first idea was to secure a go-kart seat in the cockpit of the car. It is a proven design with accommodations for a restraint system. The geometry of the car, however, made this an impossibility. Several designs and materials were considered including:
- A formed composite
- A canvas-type material secured at the corners
- A multi-piece bracketed design
- A molded foam with plastic shell
Due to ease of manufacturing, cost, and weight, the two primary designs were the canvas seat and the multi-piece bracketed seat.
The canvas seat would require a lot of drilling in the frame of the car to secure the corners with bolts. It lacked the rigidity that was desired for safe operation and did not provide support for the lower back. The multi-piece bracketed design would allow for adjustability and would provide the rigidity and support necessary for the driver to operate the car for long periods comfortably and safely. The design matrix can be found below.
The development of the bracket required some thought into the means by which it would fasten to the car itself and how the seat would be secured to the bracket. Size being a primary concern, it was decided that the seat bottom would be secured directly to the belly pan and that the seat back would attach to the bracket. The bracket itself would be a swing arm design that was pinned to sleeve brackets that would fit around the car frame. This concept was my “final design” in lab 8. A Pro Engineering drawing of this design can be seen below.
In order to secure the bottom shell to the solar car, the belly pan needed to be welded into place. This was also required in order to properly place the rack and pinion steering. Once the belly pan was welded, the sleeve bracket concept was no longer viable. This required some more thought into the design of the bracket. At this point, an ergonomic analysis was performed in order to determine the moment on the driver’s lower back while driving. This analysis can be found in the appendix. Unfortunately, due to the limited space and awkward posture, there really is no “good” position for the driver to be in while operating the vehicle. However, in order to minimize the moment on the driver’s back, it was found that the swing-arm design was no longer the best design. A new one had to be devised. This is where the idea for a simple, welded bracket came into play. The seat back would be bolted to a pair of vertical posts that would slide into a frame that would be welded to the belly pan. It would allow for angular adjustability as well as axial and height modifications. A rough sketch of the design can be found below.
Though this is not the only idea for the seat bracket, it does appear to be the most viable. A new selection matrix will need to be completed in order to compare new concepts.
As discussed in the “lessons learned” section, the ability to modify designs in order to adapt to changes in the overall structure of the vehicle are imperative in the successful completion of the project. Several set-backs have been encountered but the newest design will be able to be implemented and put into place shortly.
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