Samenvatting
The program was designed to support rulemaking activity on Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 207 and was conducted to document the state-of-the-art in seat back latch design and performance. Operability of the seat back latch with the seat back under load is a prime consideration in emergency egress from the rear seat. The program consisted of (1) measuring latch control release forces with each seat back under load, (2) testing an inertial seat latch in various dynamic modes to determine its function and operation, and (3) conducting a human factors evaluation of representative seat back latches using a panel of 42 nonautomotive oriented respondents.