Development of a concept design process for an automotive body structure using a knowledge-based database

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose a concept design process for an automotive body structure using technical information on the major joints and members of vehicles. First, in order to collect the technical information on major joints and members, 43 vehicles were selected using benchmark data. The collected technical information for the selected vehicles was the cross sectional shapes of each joint and member which were used for the analysis of joint stiffness, crashworthiness and static stiffness of the member to make a database along with cross section properties. This study applied a 'What If Study' technique to perform a concept design of an automotive body using the analyzed information and selected cross section meeting the design objectives. The criteria for the selection of the cross section were defined by subdividing the defined design objectives of an automotive body structure and constraints into members and joints. In order to configure an analysis model of an automotive body structure using the selected cross section, a shape parametric model was used and static stiffness, dynamic stiffness and crashworthiness were assessed to evaluate the configured automotive body structure. The evaluation result showed that the crashworthiness and static/dynamic stiffness were improved by 10% and 5% respectively compared to an existing body structure. In addition, the weight of the body structure was reduced by 4.2%. Through this study, the process that can rapidly and effectively derive and evaluate the concept design of an automotive body structure was defined. It is expected that, henceforth, this process will be helpful for the study of automotive body structures.