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Analysis and Design Optimization of Seat Rail Structures in Various Operating Conditions

Automotive seating rail structures are one of the key components in the automotive industry because they carry the entire weight of passenger and they are the holding structure for the seating foams and other assembled important components such as side airbags and seatbelt. The entire seating is being supported firmly and attached to the bottom bodywork of the vehicle through the linkage assembly called as the seat rails. These seat rails are adjustable in their longitudinal motion which plays an important role in giving the passengers enough leg room to make them feel comfortable. Therefore, the seat rails under the various operating conditions, should be able to withstand the complete weight of the human with the seating structures, other assembled parts into the seating and functional requirements such as crash safety which are important to avoid or minimize injuries to the occupants. Therefore, experimentation of the various design concepts of the seat rails are performed in this paper through a detailed investigation on the FEA simulation for structure, vibration (dynamic), durability, crash and design optimization with different grades of steel, aluminum, multi-materials, and joining methods.