Advanced aircraft seat design : solving the problem of rearward space intrusion with a sliding-out seat back

An aircraft economy-class seat that reclines via a sliding-out backrest was designed, fabricated and tested for comparison with a baseline aircraft seat. The goal was to design a seat that was at least as comfortable as the baseline seat so as to demonstrate the viability of replacing the usual backwards recline feature with a sliding-out mechanism. This would solve the problems of space intrusion associated with seat recline. Three additional features were included on the seat: an adjustable lumbar support, a height-adjustable winged headrest and a height-adjustable tray. The seat was evaluated via human subject responses and pressure distribution maps. Results obtained from the experiment showed that the seat was as comfortable as a baseline seat, if not better, and there was no statistical indication that subjects found the seat more uncomfortable. Pressure distribution maps corresponded well to the subject responses. Based on the test results, the concept is deemed viable and its implementation is recommended on daytime flights that are over three hours long.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Koh, Chong Hin, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Charles W. Boppe, Carlos Eduardo Stolf Cesnik, and Peter W. Young.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9484

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/9484