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The sensor mounted on the door impact beam plays a major role in side impact events. The accelerations of side impact sensors are processed by sensing algorithms to make a decision on the air bag deployment. The sensing signal criterion for the deployable condition is a well understood process. However, the non-deployment sensing signal for the immunity to abuse conditions is a function of sensor attachment stiffness to the base structure. The base structure can be a door inner panel or door impact beam. In one of the production program, the acceleration based sensor attached to the impact beam showed immunity issues in the abusive door slams/opening to objects. Hence, the computer Aided Engineering (CAE) analysis was used to develop the sensor attachment criterion.

Developing a robust model that can simulate all real world conditions a vehicle can experience can be extremely difficult to predict. When working through the engineering process, Computer Aided Engineers (CAE) traditionally set modeling parameters and conditions to a nominal setting. This is done to simplify the models so that it avoided inputting too much tedious details into the system and wasting so much engineering time preparing the work. It was soon realized that this strategy did not capture all the possible conditions a hood on a vehicle could experience. There was a need to develop a formal approach and method to correlate an analysis model to real world conditions. The Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) process was utilized to develop robustness in the techniques used to accurately understand the vehicle environment. The DFSS process is normally used to design and develop robustness into physical parts.