American Ergonomics Corporation
Innovative Seat Technology for Comfort and Safety
Counter Balance Motion Seat for Automotive Safety
The Counter Balance Motion (CBM) Seat acts as the third occupant restraint to increase automotive safety, provides a passive, cost-effective solution to lower body injury and improves occupant comfort.
The CBM Seat design utilizes the seat cushion as a crash safety restraint. Crash simulation results of the CBM Seat utilizing a 20% depowered airbag and softer belts yield a 33 to 70% reduction in injury loads to the chest and legs. Head Injury Criterion (HIC) values are reduced 13 to 30% and impact loads applied to the lower leg become negligible on NCAP AM50 tests, with values below 200 N.
While Safety may be today's consumers number one interest, comfort has always been an important point to car buyers. The CBM offers comfort and automatic adjustment. The reaction from people ride testing the CBM Seat is 'I want this Seat!' The CBM Seat automatically adjusts, has a movable lumbar not possible in other seats and a motion that makes one feel 'safe.'
The CBM Seat design utilizes the seat cushion as a crash safety restraint. Crash simulation results of the CBM Seat utilizing a 20% depowered airbag and softer belts yield a 33 to 70% reduction in injury loads to the chest and legs. Head Injury Criterion (HIC) values are reduced 13 to 30% and impact loads applied to the lower leg become negligible on NCAP AM50 tests, with values below 200 N.
While Safety may be today's consumers number one interest, comfort has always been an important point to car buyers. The CBM offers comfort and automatic adjustment. The reaction from people ride testing the CBM Seat is 'I want this Seat!' The CBM Seat automatically adjusts, has a movable lumbar not possible in other seats and a motion that makes one feel 'safe.'
Benefits of the Counter Balance Motion Seat
Cost Effective
The CBM Seat mechanism is an efficient design to provide backrest recline and seat tilt for comfort and safety at a significantly lower cost. It has built in safety properties, significantly reducing injury loads in frontal, offset and rear impacts, thus increasing safety and reducing restraint costs.
Front Impact Safety
The CBM Seat acts as a passive restraint system to reduce head and lower body injury
- CBM Seat performance in frontal crash sled tests show a net reduction in leg loads of 30 to 60%. This is well below bone and joint failure level.
- CBM Seat, in frontal sled tests, show a 26% reduction in head and neck loads; Neck injury criteria (Nij) levels are all below 0.24; and there is a reduction in HIC values of 13 to 30%. Fixed seat tests show an HIC of 374 compared to 285 in the optimized CBM seat model. This allows for the use of lower pressure air bags and softer belt stiffness characteristics.
Rear Impact Safety
The CBM Seat in rear impact sled tests show an 18% reduction in HIC values and a 6% reduction in neck loads;
- Reduced head trajectory in both directions, rear impact loading and forward unloading.
- Reduced HIC, neck and chest loading values while absorbing forces of the lower body.
- Reduced deformation of the seat and back recline mechanism.
Improved Safety Standards
Results of both crash testing and computer modeling show outstanding improvements to automotive safety. These results indicate that the CBM Seat should be mandated as a safety feature in every automobile.
Comfort Features
The CBM Seat offers improved seating comfort
- Automatic seat tilt and backrest lumbar recline for comfort without complex mechanisms or electric motors.
- Seat tilt-lock device designed for the CBM Seat provides an option to lock the seat, with instantaneous release on impact to insure that safety properties perform at impact.
- Automatic Self-adjusting lumbar support with seat tilt action.