Combined with finite element analysis of car seat safety performance improvement

Neck injuries caused by low-speed rear-end collisions are a worldwide problem. The reasonable design of car seat can effectively prevent or reduce the passenger neck injuries. In this paper, the finite element analysis (FEA) and whiplash test are combined to optimize the seat structure parameters to enhance the safety. The whiplash test results of the existing car seats according to C-NCAP (2015) were matched with FEA, and the optimization scheme was developed by computer simulation. For the improvement of seat safety, the optimizations are applied to determine backrest stiffness, backrest rotational stiffness, headrest rotational stiffness and headrest stiffness. The retest results of optimized seat show that its safety performance is greatly improved. Furthermore, it shows that the combination of finite element analysis and whiplash test can optimize seat structure to improve safety performance.