Vehicle Seat Headrest Bracket Contact Member
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicle seat designs in the event of a rear-end collision result in a longer contact time between the occupant's head and the headrest, which can lead to increased whiplash risk, and are often complex in configuration due to large back receiving members and elastic components.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle seat design featuring a bracket contact member bridged between the seat back's side frames, which suppresses rearward tilting of the headrest by contacting the support bracket, allowing for a larger forward tilting angle and reducing contact time, while maintaining a simple configuration with a solid rod material for the bracket contact member.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a large back receiving member and elastic members are used to enable the head rest to move forward in a rear-end collision, then the contact time is reduced and whiplash reduction effect is improved, but the configuration becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and eliminates the large back receiving member and elastic members from the configuration. Instead, it uses a simple bracket contact member that contacts the support bracket directly to achieve the head rest forward movement function, thereby simplifying the configuration while maintaining the whiplash reduction effect
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using elastic members to push the head rest forward, the patent inverts the approach by using a rigid bracket contact member that allows the support bracket to rotate forward during collision, achieving the same protective function through a different mechanical principle
2Stability of the object's composition
If the stiffness is increased to prevent rearward tilting of the head rest, then the head rest stability is improved, but the forward tilting angle during collision is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different stiffness characteristics to different directions of head rest movement. The bracket contact member provides high stiffness to prevent rearward tilting during normal operation, while allowing forward tilting during collision due to the rotation mechanism at the support bracket connection point
Solution Approach 2:
The patent makes the head rest support system dynamic by allowing the support bracket to rotate forward during collision. This dynamic response enables the head rest to achieve a larger forward tilting angle when needed for whiplash protection, while maintaining stability during normal use
Data Source
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AI summary
In a vehicle seat (10), a bracket contact member (36) is fixed to a seat back frame (18) and contacts support brackets (26) in an initial use position, to suppress rearward tilting of a head rest (16) with respect to the seat back frame. While suppressing rearward tilting, forward tilting of the head rest with respect to the seat back frame from the initial use position, by inertia force in the event of a rear-end collision of a vehicle, is not suppressed by the contact member.