Spherical Guide Element for Motor Vehicle Seat Adjustment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern motor vehicle seats face challenges in minimizing play and friction between movable parts due to manufacturing tolerances and external forces, leading to increased drive force requirements for adjustment.
Innovation Solution
The use of guide elements with circular or spherical cross sections and convexly curved surfaces, mounted in bearing points with concavely curved surfaces, reduces friction and allows for relative movement between the attachment and main part, minimizing the force needed for adjustment and compensating for deformations and manufacturing irregularities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If guide elements with resilient bends are used to address degrees of freedom, then play between carriage and guide is reduced, but friction forces increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The guide element is designed with a spherical cross-section and a convexly curved surface, while the bearing point has a concavely curved surface. This spherical geometry allows the guide element to rotate freely within the bearing point, accommodating deformations and manufacturing tolerances without generating high friction forces, thus resolving the contradiction between play prevention and friction reduction.
2Manufacturing precision
If manufacturing tolerances and external forces are present, then degrees of freedom (play) result about multiple axes, but using resilient bends to address this increases friction
Solution Approach 1:
The spherical guide element design inherently compensates for manufacturing tolerances and external forces by allowing rotational movement within the bearing point, eliminating the need for complex resilient bends while maintaining low friction and ease of manufacture.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the geometric parameters of the guide element from conventional shapes to a spherical cross-section with convexly curved surface, enabling the system to accommodate tolerances and forces through rotation rather than deformation, thus reducing drive force requirements.
3Device complexity
If conventional guide elements are used, then structural simplicity is maintained, but friction forces require larger drive force for adjustment
Solution Approach 1:
The spherical guide element with convexly curved surface rotating within a concavely curved bearing point creates a low-friction interface that significantly reduces the application force needed for seat adjustment, while the structural simplicity is maintained through the elegant geometric solution.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution significantly reduces the application force required for seat adjustments, enhances user comfort, and maintains quality by minimizing play and compensating for deformations, making the seat adjustment mechanism more efficient and cost-effective.
Implementation Method 1
A substantially globular or spherical guide element significantly reduces the friction forces between the guide element and the bearing point compared with solutions known hitherto
Data Source
AI summary
An adjustable motor vehicle seat includes a main part, an attachment which is movable relative to the main part, and a guide element which includes a receiving portion configured for receiving the main part or the attachment at least in part and having a surface which has at least one portion shaped spherically. The guide element is mounted in a bearing point of at least one of the main part and of the attachment, said bearing point having a cross section which at least in one portion is circular.