Virtual Evaluation of Seat Shake Performance Using Four Poster Shaker 2021-01-0325

For the designing of world class vehicles, ride comfort is one of the criteria that vehicle manufacturers are constantly trying to improve. The automotive seating system is an important sub-system in a vehicle that contributes to the ride comfort of the vehicle occupants. Seat vibrations are perceived by the occupants and make them feel uncomfortable during driving conditions. These vibrations are majorly transferred from engine and road excitation loads. For road excitation loads, the road testing may not be accurately repeatable, and measurements based on four post shakers are used to assess the discomfort. The major challenges for the vehicle manufactures is the availability of physical prototypes at an early stage of vehicle development and any changes in the design due to test validation leads to huge cost and time. This creates a necessity to develop a virtual methodology to predict the seat shake performance at an early stage of the program without the need of prototype vehicles. This paper presents the process used for prediction of seat shake performance by replicating the physical four post shaker excitation using a multi-body simulation tool. The virtual seat shake responses are validated with the physical test results. The results show good agreement between virtual prediction and physical measurement. This approach gives an opportunity to evaluate different seat design options and select the best design which gives better ride comfort to the occupants. This virtual process reduces the number of physical tests, time and cost, and yet will arrive at best seat design.