Research on the Development Procedure of Light-Weight New Body Architecture

Abstract

This research focuses on how to develop a new, light-weight body architecture efficiently. And the full-procedure light-weight design method for new body architecture was studied and the technical approaches for light-weight research were further exerted. The process of body architecture design development can be divided into two phases: conceptual design phase and detailed design phase. Conceptual design phase can also be divided into concept selection phase and concept optimization phase. In the phase of scheme selection of conceptual design, the key load paths of the total vehicle and body architecture are developed by ways such as topology optimization, section load analysis and so on. In the phase of conceptual design optimization, shape and dimension are optimized by Multidisciplinary Optimization (MDO) based on the methods of Design of Experiment (DOE) and Approximation Model, and also the region-dividing optimization, so that the multi-objective of total body architecture is optimized. In the phase of body architecture detailed design, the body architecture and its subsystems are totally optimized by using all kinds of methods comprehensively and the best combination of materials, section shape, dimension, position and thickness are generated. Through the flow of the three phases, a light-weight and efficient body architecture comes out in the paper which is 9 % lighter than its previous generation.KeywordsBody architectureConceptual designDetailed designLight-weightOptimization