Evaluation of Sitting Comfort of Leather Car Seat

Sitting comfort of leather car seat, whose grain leather pattern were different, were evaluated by the sensory evaluation. Physical properties and body pressure distributions of leather car seat were also measured. The adjectives used for sensory evaluation were examined by principle component analysis. From the results of subjective measurements, samples with larger unevenness of the grain were evaluated as not high-quality, not relaxed and not comfortable. Samples with smaller unevenness of the grain and smooth were evaluated as simple, familiar and comfortable. From the use of principal component analysis, two principal components were obtained, therefore, the sitting comfort were evaluated by "high-class" and "familiar". From the correlations between sensory evaluations and physical properties or body pressure distributions, the sitting comfort of leather car seat have correlations with the physical properties, which are friction properties of surface, and with the contact pressure of the mannequin and the car seat. From the correlations of tactile sensations and sitting images adjectives, the sitting comfort for leather car seat could not be predicted by the tactile sensations of leather car seat covers. There were greatly difference between the evaluation of sitting comfort for the fabric car seat and those for the leather car seat.