Seat Cushion Vent Structure to Prevent Unevenness and Air Leakage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional air-conditioned seats experience deformation and unevenness at the border between the upper and lower pads when occupied, leading to discomfort and potential air leakage, along with undesirable shifts of the cover member relative to the pad body.
Innovation Solution
A seat design featuring a seat cushion pad with an air passage and air vent, where the cover member extends over the pad body's front end, incorporating protrusions and depressions for engagement, and extensional marginal portions to reduce deformation and air leakage, ensuring a large cross-sectional air passage and stable seating comfort.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If the front end portion of the cover member is lifted when an occupant sits on the seat, then deformation occurs in the pads, but this causes unevenness at the border between the front end portions of the upper and lower pads which deteriorates seating comfort
Solution Approach 1:
The cover member's front end portion extends downward beyond the front end of the pad body, creating an overlapping region that prevents unevenness from transferring to the seating surface. This dimensional extension in the vertical direction resolves the contradiction by maintaining structural stability while preserving seating comfort.
Solution Approach 2:
The downward extension of the cover member acts as a pre-positioned structural element that compensates for potential lifting deformation. By extending the cover member downward beforehand, the design prevents unevenness at the border before it can affect seating comfort, thus resolving the contradiction between stability and comfort.
2Ease of manufacture
If the cover member is not secured to the pad body, then assembly is simple, but an undesirable shift of the cover member relative to the pad body occurs
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of securing the entire cover member to the pad body, the invention applies local engagement features (protrusions and recesses) only at specific locations. This localized approach maintains ease of assembly while preventing relative shift, resolving the contradiction between manufacturing simplicity and positional stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The engagement mechanism is segmented into discrete protrusions and recesses rather than a continuous connection. This segmentation allows the cover member to be easily assembled while providing sufficient anti-shift capability through the distributed engagement points, resolving the contradiction between ease of assembly and stability.
3Volume of moving object
If the air passage cross-sectional area is reduced, then the structure becomes more compact, but air flow capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The air passage utilizes the vertical space created by the downward extension of the cover member. By extending the cover member downward, the invention creates additional vertical room for the air passage, maintaining adequate cross-sectional area for air flow while keeping the overall structure compact in the horizontal direction.
Data Source
AI summary
It is an object to provide a seat of which a seating comfort can be improved. The seat includes a seat cushion pad having an air passage formed inside and an air vent formed at an upper surface thereof, and is configured to allow air in the air passage to blow out through the air vent, wherein the seat cushion pad includes a pad body and a cover member which is disposed over the pad body to form the air passage between the pad body and the cover member and in which the air vent is formed, and a front end portion of the cover member extends downward over a front end portion of the pad body.