• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.108-113
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• 2019

Due to the special structure of the car seat, the heating and cooling module must be installed in a limited area resulting in difficulty in regards to achieving optimal cooling and heating efficiency. In order to solve these problems, this paper establishes a new structure for heating and cooling modules, verifies the structural feasibility of the thermoelectric module for cooling and heating the seat through fluid simulations, and verifies the proper design of the mechanical components of the thermoelectric module.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2009

Research for climate control seats is being vigorously pursued because requests for passenger's thermal comfort are increasing. Recently, thermoelectric devices have been applied to automotive seats for both cooling and heating operations. The climate control seats using thermoelectric devices can rapidly control the air temperature passing through the devices and directly affect the thermal comfort of passengers. The performance characteristics of the climate control seats were analyzed by experiments for two different types of a leather covered seat and a mesh applied seat. Experimental results show that the cooling and heating performance for the mesh applied seat by using the discharge port of the shape of nozzle was improved significantly in comparison with that for the leather covered seat. The variation of temperature between the inlet air and the outlet air of the climate control seat for the enhanced mesh applied type was by $-3.5^{\circ}C$ at cooling mode, and was by $15.0^{\circ}C$ at heating mode, after about 30 minutes, respectively. Also, it is possible to provide rapid thermal comfort to passengers sitting on the seat in the vehicle cabin by using the proposed climate control seat.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.761-766
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• 2011

In this study, the optimized design profiles between a seal ring and a seal seat of contacting seal units has been proposed based on the FEM computed results. The maximum temperatures, the thermal distortions in axial and radial directions, and maximum contact normal stresses between a seal ring and a seal seat have been analyzed for various contact sealing profiles. The FEM computed results present that the contact area between seal rings and seal seats is very important for a good tribological performance such as low friction heating, low wear, high contact normal stress in a primary sealing components. The seal surface model III in which has a small sealing contact area shows low dilatation of primary sealing components, and high contact stress between a seal ring and a seal seat. This model with small contact surface of a seal ring produces high friction heating and contact stress. But the model III produces very small deformations of contacting sealing surface because of high convection heat transfer by cooling water circulation around the seal ring surface. Thus, the analysis results recommend a short width of a primary sealing unit rather than a big width of contact surfaces of contacting seal units for reducing a leakage and axial deformation of primary seal components.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.314-321
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• 2004

Thermal distortion of non-contacting mechanical seals with inclined rubbing surfaces is affected by friction heat between seal ring and seal seat. The circulation fluid along the inclined rubbing surfaces maintains cooling friction heat and lubrication between the sealing surfaces of mechanical seal with an inclined surface. Mechanical seals with inclined sealing surfaces may be useful for reducing the frictional heating and power loss because of the introduction of cooling fluids to the sealing gap between seal ring and seal seat. From the FEM computed result shows that the thermal behavior and von Mises stress of sealing faces with an inclined angle 60 are much reduced in comparison of the conventional mechanical face seal with rectangular sealing surfaces.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.24-29
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• 2017

In this study, a seat cross member was fabricated by optimizing the resin transfer molding processing of CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics) materials. This seat cross member is used in automotive underbody parts and provides side impact support. The seat cross was manufactured via vacuum resin transfer molding. The process included 1min of resin injection, 8 mins of heating, and 1 min of cooling, for a total molding time of 10mins. Tensile test results showed an average breaking load of 21.50kN, a tensile strength of 404 MPa, and an elastic modulus of 46.2 GPa. As a result, the CFRP seat cross provides the same strength as a similar steel part, but weighs 42% less.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.115-123
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• 2010

Cool-down performance after soaking is important because it affects passenger's thermal comfort. The cooling capacity of HVAC system determines initial cool down performance in most cases, the performance is also affected by location, and shape of panel vent, indoor seat arrangement. Therefore, optimal indoor designs are required in developing a new car. In this paper, initial cool down performance is predicted by CFD(computational fluid dynamics) analysis. Experimental time-averaging temperature data are used as inlet boundary condition. For more reliable analysis, real vehicle model and human FE model are used in grid generation procedure. Thermal and aerodynamic characteristics on re-circulation cool vent mode are investigated using CFX 12.0. Thermal comfort represented by PMV(predicted mean vote) is evaluated using acquired numerical data. Temperature and velocity fields show that flow in passenger's compartment after soaking is considerably unstable at the view point of thermodynamics. Volume-averaged temperature is decreased exponentially during overall cool down process. However, temperature monitored at different 16 spots in CFX-Solver shows local variation in head, chest, knee, foot. The cooling speed at the head and chest nearby panel vent are relatively faster than at the knee and foot. Horizontal temperature contour shows asymmetric distribution because of the location of exhaust vent. By evaluating the passenger's thermal comfort, slowest cooling region is found at the driver's seat.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.10 s.253
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• pp.1284-1292
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• 2006

Heat treatment is a controlled heating and cooling process to improve the physical and/or mechanical properties of metal products without changing their shapes. Today finite element method is widely used to simulate lots of manufacturing processes including heat treatment and surface hardening processes, which aims to reduce the number of time- and cost-consuming experimental tryouts. In this study we tried, using this method, to simulate the full carburizing process that consists of carburizing, diffusing and quenching, and to predict the distribution of carbon contents, phase fraction and hardness, thermal deformation and other mechanical characteristics as the results. In the finite element analysis deformation, heat transfer, phase transformation and diffusion effects are taken into consideration. The carburizing process of a lock gear, a part of the car seat recliner, that is manufactured by the fine blanking process is adopted as the analysis model. The numerical results are discussed and partly compared with experimental data. And a combination of process parameters that is expected to give the highest surface hardness is proposed on the basis of this discussion.