Overview
I redesigned the seat for the Mk.5 formula car. The goal of the project was to increase stiffness of the seat to better support the driver's back, shoulders, and hips.
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Due to the packaging constraints from the chassis, the general geometry of the seat was not iterated on from the previous design. The seat was also made with aluminum sheet metal since it would be easier to fabricate in-house.
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I focused on changing the hole pattern on the back of the seat and changing the geometry of the hip area.
I planned to use dimple dies and bead rolling to increase the stiffness of the back of the seat. Eventually I ended up using a simpler pattern consisting of five dimple dies and vertical bead rolls since my inexperience in sheet metal bending caused pieces to warp.
The sheet was cut with a CNC plasma cutter and then bent using a magnetic breaker. The lap joints were then fixed with rivets.
To mount the seat into the chassis, steel tabs were manufactured and welded onto the chassis. The tabs also incorporated weld nuts to decrease the amount of time it took to install and uninstall the seat in the chassis.
