• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.203-209
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• 2014

The rear center-hinge bracket is designed for supporting and folding the rear-seat backrest. This bracket needs to be strong enough to be able to rigidly hold the rear-seat backrest and to withstand luggage loads from the car trunk that are generated when a vehicle is driving on the roads. Particularly, current accident studies report that many serious occupant injuries occurred when the rear-seat back easily folded inward toward the car interior, driven by the luggage loads in the trunk. Given this fact, the robust design of the rear center-hinge bracket that mainly supports the rear backrest has become more important for providing customer safety and preventing high warranty and durability problems. However, none of the studies have emphasized its significant role and considered its robust optimization. Therefore, this paper presents how the hinge-bracket design is optimized based on an application of the finite-element method coupled with the parameter design using Taguchi's design experiment. Finally, Taguchi method's application optimizes a robust center-hinge bracket that shows more rigid performance although it has lighter weight and thinner thickness.