Driver's Seat

[DoItDoug]

Anyone have any tips on driver's seats? Do you make yours (what materails?) or buy them (from where?)? Any pictures?

'02 VT FSAE
www.vmotorsports.com (http://www.vmotorsports.com)

[-Gabriel]

Look for 2 part foam. We buy it from a local plastic industry.
"Tip": Provide lateral support without interfering with the pilot's elbows...

Gabriel Denoury
Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal FSAE
www.fsae.polymtl.ca (http://www.fsae.polymtl.ca)

[Lyn Labahn UW-Madison]

Be very concious of weight, the seat is an area of the car that is not load bearing, or power producing, no need to make it overkill!

These cars can pull some huge lateral Gs, make sure that the drivers upper torso and hips are held in one place if your cockpit is wide.

Make the driver sit as low as possible, i.e. there should be a very thin buttocks area of the seat, or none at all! A driver is usually comparatively heavy to other parts of the car, and most frame/suspension designers would slit there mommas throat to get the CG .5" lower, its worth it to make sure the driver is low.

Some teams make a carbon fiber "cradle" device that the driver sits in, it is lightweight, but expensive if you have to buy the carbon.

Another method is to mix a batch of two part expanding urethane foam, dump it in a large bag, place it in the cockpit, and have a driver sit still while it hardens, then cover the foam with vinyl or black duct tape(ghetto fabulous).

What I did last year was carve a seat out of stacks of pink insulation foam, harden it with epoxy resin, put a soft foam over the back area, then had it covered with vinyl. For the area under the drivers legs a rolled peice of aluminum was fitted to give the driver support, and keep his feet from snagging on any wires and electronics that were on the floor of vehicle.

Good luck.

2002/2003 Team Leader

[Eddie Martin]

The way we did our seat did take some time but it gave a good result.

First we put wooden boards in the cockpit of the car (steel tube frame), then got the driver to sit on a large plastic bag. We poured 2-part polyurethane foam into the bag. Once the foam set we sanded and bogged it to the desired shape. (as a note "bog" is a two part auto body filler).
Then we made a fibreglass female mold from the foam plug.
The final product was made from carbon fibre and epoxy resin. As a guide on weight our carbon seat weighs about 850g and a fibreglass one we made weighs 1000g.

doitdoug, i don't know how to attach pictures but i have emailed you one, maybe you can post it.

Regards
Eddie Martin
University of Wollongong
UOW Racing
www.uow.edu.au/eng/racing (http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/racing)

[Dominic Venieri]

Last year we did the same as other teams, fill up a box with 2 part foam, have the driver sit in it. Spent the next 2 months filling and sanding that. Then bagged a carbon seat to the surface. Came out like this http://www.formularpi.com/gmsafety/images/IMAG0002.jpg.

Year before, we did the same thing, but made a female glass mold first. This year, we're going to try and mold off last year's seat, otherwise we're going with the glass mold idea again.

www.formularpi.com (http://www.formularpi.com)

[Howard]

SSweet looking seat Dominic. I'm kind of embarrassed to post pics of mine now! I will though when I get them off the digital camera.

What we did was buy 50lbs of modeling clay and work that around the cockpit to get a rough idea of what we were looking to do.

Then we solid modeled it on a computer, converted that to CNC code, machined a buck from "Foamula R", prepped,bondoed and painted that and finally did carbon lay up which I f'd up(couldn't get enough vacuum on it in time). Hopefully I'll finish the closeouts and bodywork in time to go back and do the seat again before competition.

I don't know why anyone would do glass when the carbon is "like free" after you factor in all the other costs.


btw, our seat is 3lbs with excess resin.

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Howard:
I don't know why anyone would do glass when the carbon is "like free" after you factor in all the other costs.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Free? Maybe if you CNC the mold it seems free.. ?

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE 1999-present

[Howard]

The mold was CNC'd for the cost of a hoagie and a pizza :-)

Well, there's the foam, house paint, gallon of bondo, surfacing primer, some other primer, clear coat, all kinds of sand paper, mold release wax, peel ply, cotton, vacuum bag, resin, my time . . . . I'll pay the $6/yard more and get carbon over glass. Plus it's so much easier to work with.

I know I used the expression "like free" a little too much when a piece of sandwich panel I made to have water jetted was taken and used as a table at a fund raiser:

http://www.howard.saturnet.net/drexel_fsae/2003_030_small.jpg