The ULSAS consortium, comprising 34 of the world's major steel companies, commisioned Lotus Engineering to undertake a study concerning mass savings in steel vehicle suspensions. This programme was a follow up to two previous studies, the UltraLight Steel Auto Body programme (ULSAB) and the UltraLight Steel Closures programme (ULSAC). The paper is a presentation of the benchmarking phase in the framework of the ULSAS programme. Firstly, a comprehensive list was compiled of volume production vehicles available in the major auto markets around the world. From this list 16 significant vehicles, including both steel and aluminium based suspension systems have been chosen for benchmarking. The benchmarking process filtered the vehicles through three levels, making progressively more detailed evaluations of the suspensions against a range of performance criteria. During the final stage of the benchmark study eight key attributes of suspension design were identified. The key parameters are design, ride and handling, refinement, manufacturing, cost, packaging, and system mass. The ULSAS programme has demonstrated weight savings of up to 34 % over traditional steel suspension designs at no additional cost. It has also shown that intelligent application of steel can match the mass of an aluminium system, whilst demonstrating a 30 % cost benefit. In achieving these mass and cost objectives, ULSAS has identified and preserved key vehicle performance parameters.
Ultralight steel auto-suspensions
Ultraleichte Stahl-Radaufhängungssysteme
2002
14 Seiten, 12 Bilder
Conference paper
English
Ultralight steel auto-suspensions
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