Vehicle manufacturers today respond to the customer-driven market trends by introducing new vehicle models more often, which puts tremendous pressure on vehicle development lead time. Heightened environmental awareness and more stringent legislations present additional requirements to an already challenging design process. This paper presented an innovative methodology for rapid design of sustainable vehicle structures using a novel collaborative FEA platform. The proposed platform utilizes sub-structures in a collaborative manner to provide benefits such as: reduction of computational effort and turnaround time without compromising accuracy in linear, static structural analysis; ability to save and reuse computational time and effort taken during an FEA; set-based exploration of wider design space within available time and budget, which defers decisions to a time when best information is available; design for assembly approach where components are designed within the defined assembly environment with interactions accurately captured without unnecessary approximations; rapid customization of design through rapid validation of design changes in early design phases; integration of sustainable design principles earlier in the design process as the methodology permits increased number of objectives to be incorporated in the design process; effective and efficient coordination of the different engineering teams working on a single complex design to obtain greater resources, recognition and rewards when facing competition for finite resources flexibility in the implementation of the methodology; minimal training and infrastructure requirements as the methodology is often compatible with existing systems, requiring minor adaptations only. The methodology and associated collaborative FEA platform have been applied in vehicle seat adjuster design. The main influences and interactions between design parameters affecting a number of conflicting objectives have been rapidly identified and manipulated to develop lightweight structures for improved crashworthiness.
A collaborative FEA platform for rapid design of lightweight vehicle structures
International Journal of Vehicle Design ; 53 , 1/2 ; 110-131
2010
22 Seiten, 12 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 34 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
A collaborative FEA platform for rapid design of lightweight vehicle structures
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