Designing a lightweight and comfortable aircraft seat

Designing a lightweight and comfortable aircraft seat

Kuday, Mehmet (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)

Vink, P. (graduation committee)
Wu, J. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Integrated Product Design

2018-05-31

A LIGHT WEIGHT AND COMFORTABLE AIRCRAFT SEAT.
This assignment started fairly broad with only a clear deadline to present a final prototype at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg between 11th and 12th of April 2018. At first the project sounded almost impossible to complete before this time. After discussing the possibilities with Rik Westerink, the starting point was to design an aircraft seat feature for the premium economy class combining manufacturing techniques offered by Aeroworks. This is the reason why the report will start with an initial company and market analysis.

BASED ON ACADEMIC RESEARCH.
Personally I rarely encounter comfort issues on an aircraft. I can sit and sleep comfortably almost anywhere. I guess I am lucky like that. Therefore extensive literature research is conducted to truly understand the elements and developments of comfort and utilize this as an inspirational tool for designing a comfortable aircraft seat for all passengers.

HUMAN, BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY.
The project initiated with the company and market analysis, with contributions by literature research on comfort allowed for new ideas to emerge which are processed into an advanced premium economy seat pan concept. By means of prototyping this concept I had the opportunity to conduct user testing at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg and share my results for the benefit of improving aircraft seating comfort for a large range of passengers.
Hence, what you may expect from this thesis report is a story about my process from the beginning to the end. The result is a research based design development for a low cost aircraft seat pan concept with comfort features tailored to the economy plus and premium economy class for commercial flights.

Comfort
aircraft seat
Lightweight

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:77c6a83b-1c0b-4f2c-aad9-4c2e17e1efdd

Campus only

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Student theses

master thesis

© 2018 Mehmet Kuday