EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF STRUCTURAL GAGE SENSITIVITY INDICES FOR VEHICLE BODY STRUCTURE OPTIMIZATION

摘要

The automotive industry has sponsored a significant amount of research into vehicle body-in-white (BIW) optimization over the past decade. Lightweight design has been one focus of this research, motivated by a desire to reduce fuel consumption without sacrificing structural performance. The need to improve fuel efficiency in all vehicle classes has been made even more acute by recent increases in energy prices. Among the strategies employed are material substitution,1'2 vehicle architecture refinement,3 and manufacturing process improvement,4 One of the most successful approaches has proven to be thickness or "gage" optimization of the thin-walled components that make up the majority of a vehicle's primary structure,5'6.