Carbody Structural Lightweighting Based on Implicit Parameterized Model

• Published in: Chinese journal of mechanical engineering Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 483 - 487
• Main Authors: Chen, Xin, Ma, Fangwu, Wang, Dengfeng, Xie, Chen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society 01.05.2014; Springer Nature B.V; Zhejiang Geely Automobile Research Institute Co.Ltd, Hangzhou 311228, China%Zhejiang Geely Automobile Research Institute Co.Ltd, Hangzhou 311228, China%State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China; State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
• Edition: English ed.
• Subjects: Automation; Automotive bodies; Design modifications; Design optimization; Electrical Machines and Networks; Electronics and Microelectronics; Engineering; Engineering Thermodynamics; Finite element method; Heat and Mass Transfer; Instrumentation; Iterative methods; Machines; Manuals; Manufacturing; Materials substitution; Mathematical models; Mechanical Engineering; Multidisciplinary design optimization; Optimization; Parameterization; Parametrization; Power Electronics; Processes; Theoretical and Applied Mechanics; Weight reduction; Workload; 加工技术; 参数化模型; 多学科设计优化; 替代材料; 有限元模型; 车体结构; 车体轻量化; 隐式; BIW; MDO; implicit parameterization; carbody; structural lightweighting
• ISSN: 1000-9345; 2192-8258
• DOI: 10.3901/CJME.2014.03.483

Most of recent research on carbody lightweighting has focused on substitute material and new processing technologies rather than structures. However, new materials and processing techniques inevitably lead to higher costs. Also, material substitution and processing lightweighting have to be realized through body structural profiles and locations. In the huge conventional workload of lightweight optimization, model modifications involve heavy manual work, and it always leads to a large number of iteration calculations. As a new technique in carbody lightweighting, the implicit parameterization is used to optimize the carbody structure to improve the materials utilization rate in this paper. The implicit parameterized structural modeling enables the use of automatic modification and rapid multidisciplinary design optimization （MDO） in carbody structure, which is impossible in the traditional structure finite element method （FEM） without parameterization. The structural SFE parameterized model is built in accordance with the car structural FE model in concept development stage, and it is validated by some structural performance data. The validated SFE structural parameterized model can be used to generate rapidly and automatically FE model and evaluate different design variables group in the integrated MDO loop. The lightweighting result of body-in-white （BIW） after the optimization rounds reveals that the implicit parameterized model makes automatic MDO feasible and can significantly improve the computational efficiency of carbody structural lightweighting. This paper proposes the integrated method of implicit parameterized model and MDO, which has the obvious practical advantage and industrial significance in the carbody structural lightweighting design.