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The work carried out with external noise insulation has been demanding high importance in vehicle concept since the second External Noise Regulation in Brazil (Conama 001/ 1993). The engineering effort shall increase significantly for near future developments due to the new Regulation (Conama 272 / 2000) with more stringent limits. The effect over vehicle systems beyond noise requirements is not restricted to the addition of shields and insulators. The airflow restriction created by the noise shields surfaces may become a huge cooling issue. This situation is usually observed on trucks designed for tropical markets and submitted to severe environments. Lessons learned in a current development are the basis of the proposed methodology. Vehicle and lab sound intensity noise source ranking tests are suggested as development tools. The paper also presents a pass-by-noise development strategy that includes CAE airflow and cooling management tools.

The growing competition of the automotive market makes more and more necessary the reduction of development time and consequently, the increase of the capacity to quickly respond to the launching of the competitors. One of the most costly phases on the vehicle development process is the field durability test, both in function of the number of prototypes employed and the time needed to its execution. More and more diffused, the fatigue life prediction methods have played an important part in the durability analysis via CAE. Nevertheless, in order they can be reliable and really being able to reduce the development time and cost, they need to be provided with load cases that can accurately represent the field durability tests. This work presents a CAE approach used for light trucks in order to get a reasonable understanding of component durability behavior due to payload increase. In general, road load data is not available for a new payload condition.

The automobile industry is seeing an increased need for the application of plastics and their derivatives in various forms such as fiber reinforced plastics, in the design and manufacture of various automotive structural components, to reduce weight, cost and improve fuel efficiency. A lot of effort is being directed at the development of structural plastics, to meet specific automotive requirements such as stiffness, safety, strength, durability and environmental standards and recyclability. This paper presents the concept of reinforcing large injection molded fiber reinforced body panels with structural uni-directional fibers (carbon, graphite, kevlar or fiber glass) wound in tension around the body panels by filament winding technique. Structural uni-directional fibers in tension wound around the fiber reinforced plastic inner body panels would place these body panels under compression.