The future of your car seat is foamless
French seat manufacturer Faurecia has announced a new seat design that eliminates completely the use of polyurethane foam. The model, called Sustainable Comfort Seat, has two sheets of injection-molded thermoplastic polyurethane instead of classic foam. The new process not only saves weight, it's 17 percent (30 mm or 1 1/4 inches) thinner than standard seats, which gives backseat passengers a bit more legroom. The metallic structure is also replaced by injection-molded nylon and long-glass-fiber structural frame. Head restraints are also injection-molded and get rid of foam and steel as well. The seat model was introduced in the Light Attitude concept car, where the company also showcases a compression-molded panel that uses a natural material filler such as hemp, flax or wood. The current Smart model uses a similar system, albeit still covered with cloth.[Source: Automotive News (subs. req'd)]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kballs 8:27PM (4/22/2009)
Replace front and rear seats with these and all cars could be about 2.5 inches shorter without compromising interior passenger/cargo space... or could stay the same length and grow interior space... avoiding the usual "this year's model is bigger in every dimension".
You could go even thinner if you used the mesh fabric design used for some 3rd row seats (like Mitsubishi Outlander), but it would definitely make it difficult to have power adjustment, seat heaters/coolers, or torso/pelvis side airbags.
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Ben 11:48PM (4/23/2009)
Sure you could do that, but who wants to sit in 3rd-row style Outlander seats for more than, say 5 minutes? Not really comfortable..
The plus side is definitely the additional room/smaller exterior with equal room.
kballs 5:41PM (4/24/2009)
People sit in Outlander 3rd row style seats all day in their offices (Aeron chairs), there is no reason they couldn't be designed to be comfortable and ergonomic... but practical reasons like I mentioned will probably limit the low-profile designs to something like the polyurethane seats above.
Tohe 10:45PM (4/22/2009)
Polyurethane foam is often overlooked. It is nice to see someone out there thinking outside the box.
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jim 10:07AM (4/23/2009)
In recent years several manufacturers have shown concept cars with minimalist seats, titanium frames, netting for surfaces, similar to an Aeron chair. They looked great, but probably not practical if for no other reason than the use of metals and the concern of secondary impacts. But these are a step in the right direction.
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