Ventilated Vehicular Seat Chamber Layout for Thin Seat Cooling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vehicular seat designs require large air supply fans to maintain sufficient air flow, which increases the seat's thickness, making it difficult to minimize space in vehicles.
Innovation Solution
A vehicular seat design featuring an air supply chamber sandwiched between urethane pads with strategically formed holes and protruding members to reduce air resistance, allowing for a smaller air supply fan with reduced thickness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Power
If a large capacity air supply fan is used to maintain sufficient air flow through narrow elongated pipe passages, then air conditioning performance is improved, but the thickness of the seat increases
Solution Approach 1:
The air supply chamber is divided into multiple independent chambers, each serving a specific region of the seat back. This segmentation allows air to be supplied through multiple shorter passages rather than one or two long narrow passages, reducing air resistance and enabling the use of a smaller fan while maintaining adequate air flow for seat conditioning.
2Area of stationary object
If narrow elongated pipe passages are formed in the duct for blowing off air from distal end portions, then air distribution coverage is improved, but air resistance increases requiring larger fan capacity
Solution Approach 1:
The air supply system is segmented into multiple chambers that distribute air to different regions of the seat back. This creates multiple shorter air passages instead of long elongated ones, reducing air resistance while still achieving broad air distribution coverage across the seat surface.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of relying on long linear passages, the invention uses a two-dimensional array of multiple air supply chambers arranged across the seat back region. This dimensional approach allows air to reach distal end portions through shorter lateral passages rather than long longitudinal ones, reducing air resistance while maintaining coverage.
3Length of stationary object
If the air supply fan capacity is reduced to decrease seat thickness, then space optimization is improved, but air flow sufficiency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the air supply into multiple chambers, the system creates multiple parallel air flow paths. This increases the total effective air flow capacity without requiring a larger fan, as the air is distributed through numerous shorter passages with lower resistance, enabling adequate cooling with a compact fan.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the parameters of the air passage system by creating multiple shorter passages with larger effective cross-sectional area compared to fewer long narrow passages. This parameter change reduces air resistance and improves flow efficiency, allowing a smaller fan to deliver sufficient air flow for seat conditioning.
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 configuration enables the use of a smaller air supply fan, decreasing the seat's overall thickness while maintaining effective air flow, thus optimizing space in vehicles.
Implementation Method 1
air supplied from the air supply fan is blown off from a surface of a seat cushion or a surface of a seat back through a duct formed in the inside of a pad thus adjusting the temperature of the seating surface
Implementation Method 2
a urethane pad which sandwiches the air supply chamber and has a plurality of portions in each of which a hole through which air supplied from the air supply chamber passes is formed
Data Source
AI summary
There is provided a vehicular seat capable of using an air supply fan having a relatively small capacity so that a thickness of the air supply fan does not become one of factors in determining a thickness of a seat in realizing the reduction of the thickness of the seat. A vehicular seat includes: an air supply fan; an air supply chamber which forms a passage for air supplied from the air supply fan; and a urethane pad which sandwiches the air supply chamber and has a plurality of portions in each of which a hole through which air supplied from the air supply chamber passes is formed. The air supply chamber is formed so as to cover in a planar surface shape a region of the urethane pad including the plurality of portions in each of which the hole is formed.