Seating is an important aspect of driving and especially with sportscars, properly designed seats are vital for car control and comfort as they enable the driver’s body to be positioned correctly. Porsche will soon revolutionise sporty seating with an innovative alternative to conventional bucket seat upholstery with the concept study ‘3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seat’.
With this new technology, the sportscar manufacturer is once again underlining its close ties to motorsports. In this case, the personalised sports seat follows the principles of driver-specific seat fitting customary in professional motorsports.
In this study, the central section of the seat – in other words, the seat and backrest cushions – is partly produced by a 3D-printer. Customers will be able to choose between three firmness levels (hard, medium, soft) for the comfort layer.
“The seat is the interface between the human and the vehicle and is thus important for precise, sporty handling. That’s why personalised seat shells customised for the driver have been standard in racing cars for a long time now,” said Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board for Research and Development at Porsche. “With the ‘3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seat’, we’re once again giving customers the opportunity to experience technology carried over from motor sports.”
Close-up of the lattice structure
In addition to an ergonomic fit similar to that found in racing cars, this seat also delivers a unique design, lower weight, improved comfort and passive climate control. The 3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seat is based on the lightweight full-bucket seat from Porsche and features a sandwich construction.
This consists of a base support made from expanded polypropylene (EPP) is bonded to a breathable comfort layer consisting of a mixture of polyurethane-based materials made using additive manufacturing – in other words in a 3D-printer.
The outer skin of the concept seat is made from Racetex and features a specific perforation pattern for climate control. Window panels provide a view of exposed coloured components in the 3D-printed lattice structure and give the full-bucket seat a distinctive design.
Visible components of the comfort layer
The 3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seat will be available from Porsche Tequipment as a driver’s seat for the 911 and 718 ranges from May 2020. The range will initially be limited to 40 seat prototypes for use on racetracks in Europe in combination with a 6-point seatbelt.
Feedback from customers will be incorporated into the development process. As a next step, street-legal 3D-printed bodyform full-bucket seats in three different firmness levels and colours will be available ex-works from the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur from mid-2021.
The new seats will be available for the latest 718 (above) and 911 models.
In the long-term, the technology will also enable fully personalised solutions if sufficient customers express an interest in this. In addition to an extended range of colours, seats adapted to the individual customer’s specific body contour will then also be developed and offered.
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Keyword: Porsche to use 3D-printing technology for bucket seats