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Automotive steering wheels, which play an important role as a human machine interface, are evolving over time with numerous integrations and innovations. Thermoplastic steering wheel, one of the innovations in recent times, offers significant reduction in mass along with part integration and styling flexibility and is an excellent replacement to traditional metal armature steering wheels. Typical steering wheels need to meet many performance requirements before they enter production. With the advancement of computational mechanics and increase in computational capabilities, it has become much easier to evaluate and optimize steering wheel performance in different ways. Instead of manufacturing and running prototype tests, steering wheel designs can be modeled and optimized virtually in various scenarios using standard finite element analysis technique, thus facilitating faster development cycle.

Designers and engineers encounter many challenges in developing vehicles for the small-car market. They face constant pressure to reduce both mass and cost while still producing vehicles that meet environmental and safety requirements. At the same time, today's discriminating consumers demand the highest quality in their vehicles. To accommodate these challenges, OEMs and suppliers are working together to improve all components and systems for the high-volume small-car market. An example of this cooperative effort is a project involving an integrated structural instrument panel (IP) designed to meet the specific needs of the small-car platform. Preliminary validation of the IP project, which uses a compression-molded, glass-mat-thermoplastic (GMT) composite and incorporates steel and magnesium, indicates it will significantly reduce part count, mass, assembly time, and overall cost.