Today, automotive design has to face numerous exciting challenges. The growing globalization causes an intensified competition amongst car manufacturers and forces them to reduce the required development time in order to shorten time to market, to appear first with attractive new products. Efficient and flexible processes and tools are necessary to handle the arising complexity efficiently. Parametric-associative 3D-CAD systems offer ideal conditions to face this challenge in virtual development. The present paper focusses on a special issue in automotive concept phasethe vehicle architecture layout process and required parameterization strategies. In most cases, parametric-associative relations defined within 3D-CAD models are of rigid kind. This implies that a formula, which is defined within a 3D-CAD model in order to evaluate a specific parameter, cannot change the input/output situation of involved parameters. In most application cases, this disadvantage can be neglected, but not in case of vehicle layouting in the early concept phase. Since geometric boundary conditions which define the geometric base of a vehicle concept can vary significantly, a rigid model parameterization is not the proper solution and prevents efficient reuse of 3D-CAD models. Additionally, rigid parameterization concepts lack of the required flexibility when having to manage multiple design variants in a single model. Therefore, the present paper outlines a possible strategy, which enables the use of advantages of parametric-associative design, while allowing changes of relations-evaluation behavior in context of respective technical issues and simultaneously preserving necessary geometrical model consistency.

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