Numerical Analysis of Door Closing Velocity for a Passenger Car

Abstract

In the automobile industry, the term build quality is a quality which is perceived by customer by his senses viz. sight, sound, touch and smell. Door closing effort gives an indication of how good or bad the vehicle is engineered. The purpose of this paper is to propose modification in the door system which helps in reduction of door closing velocity. In this paper, parameters like hinge friction, hinge axis inclination, sealing, latch and air bind effect are analysed which affects door closing effort. A mathematical model is prepared to evaluate door closing velocity through calculating energy contribution by each parameter. Door closing velocity is calculated for the existing model and to improve the existing scenario, design modifications are proposed. These design modifications after implementation have shown reduction in door closing velocity by 22.8 %. Physical validation is done and results were found in line with the theoretical calculations..

Rear boot swing door closing effort: Calculations, objective and subjective evaluations in an LCV model

“…where E Closing is the total closing energy, E airbinde is the air binding energy, E Hinge is the energy consumption due to hinge friction, E Potential is the energy contribution of door potential energy, E Checkstrap is the energy consumed by check-strap, E Seal is energy absorbed by the door seals, E Latch is the energy lost due to door latch and strike, E Bodydef: and E Doordef: are the energies lost because of the deformations of door and the body in seal area, however they are small values and generally neglected in the calculations. The equation (1) then becomes…”

“…The number of the vehicles for experimental measurements vary between one and five in the literature. 1 The seal strains are regularly measured by destructive tests from randomly selected production lots and reported by the supplier. The seal stiffness on tested vehicles may be different from the values declared by the supplier.…”

“…Vehicles with high closing energy are considered worse by the evaluators. For 16 Cabin air binding 20% Door closing effort 3.8%-13.1% Qiu et al 18 Door seal energy 8% Gao and Gao 54 Door seal energy 5% Kavthekar and Badadhe 1 Door closing velocity 10% Li et al 2 Door closing effort 10% Jei 34 Door closing velocity 5.5% Yunkai et al (2010) 55 Door closing energy 7.9% Li et al 56 Cabin air binding 12.2% example, while the average door closing energy of 8.75 J was evaluated as SAE 9-10 points level (excellent), the average closing energy of 13.19 J was evaluated with the lowest SAE score 3-4 (poor level).…”

“…Door closing velocity (DCV), door closing effort (DCE), and door closing sound (DCS) can be defined as the first impressions about the quality level of a vehicle. 1 In other words, door-closing performance is one of the issues that manufacturers must concentrate on to achieve perfect human vehicle integration and perceived quality. [2][3][4] The DCE is described as the total energy required to close the door.…”

“…The developed numerical models were validated by experimental tests. 1,2,5,6 Pereira and De Souza 3 studied the effect of various latch and striker positions on DCE. Sandrini et al 4 developed a model to predict the contribution of seal reaction force and air release holes on DCE and compared with experiments.…”