When traveling by railway, the design of the train’s seats is likely the furthest thing from someone’s mind. That is, unless you’re Chinese company CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd. (Changchun), whose main focus has become the design of railway vehicle passenger seats that are more attractive, comfortable and stable.
The problem with most train seats — on subways, high speed trains and other urban railways — is that passengers can easily slide forward when the train accelerates or decelerates, making the seating experience less than optimal. Changchun, Autodesk’s March Inventor of the Month, has improved on this uncomfortable situation by creating a curved, stainless steel railway seat designed with Autodesk Inventor software.
Using Inventor software as part of Autodesk Product Design Suite, Changchun was able to calculate the release of pressure in various curves and bends and design a seat with a fully ergonomic curve that comfortably fits the human shape. This shape provides greater control, which prevents passengers from sliding forward when the train starts or stops.
In addition to the design of the seats, Changchun also used Inventor software to determine the best way to soundly affix the seats to the floors, performing strength and stress checks on the various screws, joints and welded components. Autodesk Inventor — which includes features and functionality around tooling and tolerances — not only increases the speed of these calculations, but also generates extremely accurate calculations that help reduce the occurrence of design errors.
“The modeling process in Inventor software intuitively reflects and reproduces the engineer’s design idea,” said Li Yufen, chief designer at Changchun. “Additionally, model dimensions are parameter-controlled and can be changed very easily by updating new dimension data. This is something unmatched by 2D design software.”
The Changchun team also leverages Autodesk Vault data management software to help increase the business’ product development capacity and market competitiveness. This combination of Autodesk Digital Prototyping solutions has streamlined the company’s overall design process and won a growing number of customers, particularly as European companies turn toward China to purchase spare parts — including passenger seats — for their own railway networks.
Learn more on the latest Changchun projects and developments on the company’s website.
