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The new Brazilian automotive regulation, INOVAR, states aggressive energy efficiency targets until 2016 to vehicles sold in Brazil. Many engineering solutions shall be done and implemented by Automakers to adequate current and new vehicles to INOVAR requirements. The Body Structure represents about 40% of vehicle mass and it is fundamental portion of energy efficiency study. The biggest body structure engineers challenge is provide mass reduction changes without jeopardize legal requirements and structural vehicle performance such as: Safety, Reparability, Torsional and Bending Stiffness, Durability, etc. Either Automakers or Suppliers manufacturing have an important task supporting Product Engineers on new parts development with different materials, shapes and joining. The contribution of Body Structure mass reduction for Internal Combustion Engines vehicles is not enough to achieve targets because new Program establishes smaller Energy Consumption for lighter vehicles.

Welding is the longest automotive manufacturing process in terms of time. Approximately 95% of an actual body structure joining is consisted by spot welds. In this specific joining process, the panels are joined one against the other, via pressure and an electric current released by the welding machine. Some case studies are demonstrating that, by using CAE optimization algorithm, it is possible to reduce significantly the amount of spot welds, without loss of function or performance. This paper demonstrates a case study with a reduction of approximately ∼ 14 % of spot-welds in a body region of a vehicle, using these tools.

The purpose of this paper is present a successfully application of Design For Assembly (DFA) and Design for Manufacturing (DFM) on Pickup-Box reinforcement. Those powerful quality tools are widely used during automotive design development and it might be a competitive design solution. As an introduction, a complete DFA and DFM revision is provided in order to allow methodology comprehension. Currently automakers technologies are shown as well. An introduction about product development process is presented in order to contextualize the DFA/DFM application in a real design situation. A rich and detailed revision about Pickup versions and body structure concept are covered as well. The study of case about DFA/DFM application on Mid-size Pickup-box Inner asm reinforcement generated 36-42% of mass reduction and 58-66% of cost reduction.