A Fully-Integrated Polypropylene Instrument Panel Design Concept

摘要

This paper describes the engineering development of a fully-integrated instrument panel (IP) design concept made of a Polypropylene (PP) rubber modified compound filled with 15% talcum. In this design concept the metal cross car beam, as usually applied in traditional IPs, has been eliminated. In the design concept, three main injection molded shells are vibration welded to each other and form a stiff structure. The steering column is attached to the BIW and to the plastic structure by means of a separate column support which can be made of steel, aluminum, magnesium or fiber-reinforced plastic. The development was meant for the European market and therefore not intended to meet the unbelted FMVSS 208 requirements. The total IP assembly has a substantially lower cost and weight than conventional cross car beam based IP structures while meeting all of the legal and performance requirements. The concept development was supported by extensive CAE. The optimized design showed that compared with a baseline IP structure using a cross car beam a weight saving of 2.5 kg can be achieved. Furthermore, assembly and recycling has improved.