Door Closing Effort is one of the important vehicle characteristics that influence customer's impression of the vehicle. This Door Closing Effort has two characteristics. First, it consists of various factors such as door component parts, layout condition and elapsed time. Second, factor specification change results in giving influence to other door major characteristics such as seal performance, and fit and finish. This time, we have developed "Side Door Closing Effort Simulation" in order to realize high quality door closing effort as a consequence of optimized factors as well as to keep the efficient balance between door closing effort and other characteristics mentioned above in the early layout stage of vehicle development. This simulation enables detailed study about each factor in the early layout stage not only by forecasting "Minimum Door Closing Speed" and Cabin pressure rise, but also by calculating each factor's energy, back pressures, each area's air passage volume, influence of weatherstrip's aging and so on. In this paper, we describe this simulation method and examples of helpful guidance for improving door closing effort.
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