Search Results

The automotive door structure experience various static and dynamic loading conditions while going through an opening and closing operation. A typical swing door is attached to the body with two hinges and a check strap. These mechanisms carry the loads while the door is opened. Similarly, while closing the door, the latch/striker mechanism along with the seal around the periphery of the door react all loads. Typically, computer aided engineering (CAE) simulations are performed considering a nominal manufacturing (or build) tolerance condition, that results in one loading scenario. But while assembling the door with the body, the build variations in door mechanisms mentioned above can result in different loading scenarios and it should be accounted for design evaluation. This paper discusses various build tolerances and its effect on door durability performances to achieve a robust door design.

In automotive design space, door opening durability is one of the important design attribute to build a door structure. Customer often interact with door while ingress and egress a vehicle and that builds a perception of vehicle in customer’s mind. Now days, Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) is used extensively to simulate the real time door opening and closing event for designing the door structure for durability performance. Early prediction of durability performance and developing the countermeasures saves great amount of time and cost. This paper provides a brief study of detail checkstrap mechanism and its influence on door durability performance. Door checkstrap plays an important role in swing door design, it assists the door opening and closing with the help of check arm profile guided by roller and spring. This allows the load transferred from door to body through checkstrap first and then through hinges.

Door closing velocity (DCV) is one of the important design parameter for door durability performance. The closing velocity varies with the design parameters and physical properties of the door. The variation in door closing effort may increase or decrease the durability of the door and body components, this can be a concern when the overall vehicle durability performance is considered. This paper gives a mathematical model to calculate the door closing effort accounting the energy sink from various door design parameters such as door seal, latch, hinge, door weight, checkstrap and cabin-pressure. In addition to this, the MS-Excel based computation tool has been developed, which aims to calculate the door closing velocity and energy contribution from each design parameter. This tool is very interactive and effective for durability engineer and helps in improving the quality of vehicle door design.

The performance of door assembly is very significant for the vehicle design and door sag/set is one of the important attribute for design of door assembly. This paper provides an overview of conventional approach for door sag/set study based on door-hinge-BIW assembly (system level approach) and its limitation over new approach based on subassembly (subsystem level approach). The door sag/set simulation at system level is the most common approach adopted across auto industry. This approach evaluates only structural adequacy of door assembly system for sag load. To find key contributor for door sagging is always been time consuming task with conventional approach thus there is a delay in providing design enablers to meet the design target. New approach of door sag/set at “subsystem level” evaluates the structural stiffness contribution of individual subsystem. It support for setting up the target at subsystem level, which integrate and regulate the system level performance.