Material Selection Decision-Making Method for Multi-material Lightweight Automotive Body Driven by Performance

Abstract

This work proposes a material selection decision-making method for multi-material lightweight body driven by performance to achieve that the right materials are used for the correct positions of the automotive body. The internal relationship between performance and mass, cross-sectional shape, wall thickness parameters, and material properties of a thin-walled structure is studied. The lightweight material indices driven by performance are then established. The lightweight material indices and material price are taken as the decision-making criteria for the material selection of automotive body components. A hybrid weighting method integrated with the analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, and quality function deployment is proposed. The difficulty of quantitatively evaluating the performance requirements of different components of the body is solved using the proposed weighting method combined with the numerical analytical results of the component performance under multiple operating conditions of the automotive body. Then, the weight of the decision-making criteria for material selection is calculated. Grey relational analysis is used to make multicriteria decision-making on a variety of candidate materials to select the best material for body components. After the lightweight material selection of the front longitudinal beam of the automotive body, the frontal collision safety performance of the body is effectively improved, and the mass of the front longitudinal beam is reduced by 45%. Material selection result of the front longitudinal beam indicates that the proposed material selection decision-making method can effectively achieve the fast material selection of components in different positions of the body.