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The perceived quality of automotive closures (flushness and margin) is strongly affected by flanging and hemming of the outer panels and assembly respectively. To improve the quality of closures, the traditional hardware approach needs significant amount of time and costly die re-cuts and trials with prototype panels. Thus, such approach may delay the vehicle program and increase the overall investment cost. The proposed CAE methodology provides upfront design guidance to dies and panels, reduces time and increases cost savings associated with flanging and hemming while improving overall quality of the closures. In this proposed approach, as a first step, analytical formulae and design of experiments (DOE) are followed to estimate magnitude of design parameters of panels and dies as the upfront design guidance.

Whiplash-associated disorder is one of the most common injuries from rear-impact crash scenarios. Knowing the injury mechanism is one of the keys in designing the seat to reduce the risk of injury. Due to the effects of variation, whiplash prevention is one of the most challenging safety-related topics in automotive industry. The test variation can originate from the dummy itself, seat components, materials, assembly tolerance, and as well as typical test setup variations. It is important to understand these variations and take them into account using Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) analysis in order to identify how to reduce the risk of injury. In this paper, a robust methodology to predict occupant response from CAE simulations is developed by combining a Design of Experiment (DOE) with an Automated Process (AP). A Whiplash Variation Map (WVM) is developed to serve as a seat design aid.