A Study of Design Methodology to Develop Improved Door System of a Vehicle 2019-01-0616

This research paper is about a systematic design methodology used to develop improved door system of a vehicle. With a variety of engineering analyses, a new structural design was derived and optimized. The previous door system required improvement of the following problems. First, the lower quality of a door system especially causes the performance degradation such as NVH. But it is difficult to have a robust structure because of the limitations of structural design and manufacturing technologies. Second, for a lightweight vehicle, it is necessary to construct a structure for saving weight while ensuring equal performance. Third, a structure for improving the openness and the visibility through the door is required for the convenience. An optimization structure capable of minimizing the door is needed. In order to solve these problems fundamentally, it was needed to design a new structure that considered all of these from the basic level in the following steps. Step1. System Analysis The correlation of all components constituting the door was schematized and their functional relationship was modeled to analysis a door system. Step2. Problem Analysis The occurrence-sequence mechanism for problems was enumerated and the root cause was analyzed by investigating the subordinate cause to level 3. Step3. Deriving Concepts Using the theory of inventive problem solving techniques, new concepts were derived from a variety of fields such as new structures, materials, and manufacturing processes. (ex. new sectional shape, laser welding and piercing method for a door system) Step4. Performance Evaluation The performance of each case of the derived concepts was evaluated by item. Through optimal selection of the results, the structural design was optimized. Following the above design process, a new door system that achieved an initial design objective was developed. This design methodology can be utilized to other systems as well.