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A new generation of instrument panels will be characterized by a single material design. In the design process, more and more attention is directed to the life cycle steps after the usage phase of parts, products or systems. For this reason, the aim of every designer should be the development of a recyclable part, product or system. The request for the development should not only be recyclability, but also economic efficiency as well as low environmental impact during production and usage phase. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool for the development and design process to obtain an optimized economic and ecological (low environmental impact during the whole life cycle) product. A methodology, how Life Cycle Assessment could be integrated into the development and design process for parts, products and systems, will be presented.

For integrating Life Cycle Assessment into the design process it is more and more necessary to generate models of single life cycle steps respectively manufacturing processes. For that reason it is indispensable to develop parametric processes. With such disposed processes the aim could only be to provide a tool where parametric environmental process models are available for a designer. With such a tool and the included models a designer will have the possibility to make an estimation of the probable energy consumption and needed additive materials for the applied manufacturing technology. Likewise if he has from the technical point of view the opportunity, he can shift the applied joining technology in the design phase by changing for instance the design.

The costs for development and production of draw dies for car outer panels are extremely high and should be reduced. Furthermore it is necessary to reduce the time for developing, designing and producing the dies for the production of parts. This paper discusses new press techniques, die designs and an adjustment program for press operators. The trend goes to single action presses with CNC-controlled multipoint cushion systems in the press table and to special designed dies. These systems lead to a more robust and reproducible forming process with improved product quality. This paper deals with: Cushion Systems, New Binder Designs for Draw Dies for Sheet Metal Automotive Parts, New Computer Program to Adjust the Blankholder Forces of Modern Hydraulic Cushion Systems of Single Action Presses and Pressure Measurement for Detecting the Pressure between the Blank and the Binders of Draw Dies for Sheet Metal Automotive Parts.

A real-time 3-dimensional, nonlinear simulator for the dynamical behaviour of trucks has been developed. The simulator serves as industrial test stand for examinations on different electronic control systems. This paper describes the challenging task of developing a powerful real-time simulator with hardware coupling based on parallel transputer systems. The integration of an anti-lock braking system (ABS) as hardware-in-the-loop by means of an interface electronic device is described. The interface electronics provide the coupling of the electronic control unit (ECU). The special demands on the signals and the resulting concept for the developed electronic interface are specified. Some results from dynamic braking simulations show the quality of the simulator.

Life cycle assessment offers a suitable methodology to evaluate environmental impacts over the total life cycle of the car. Indeed the effort for LCA studies of complex products like cars is very high. Design for environment tools can help to reduce the effort for environmental evaluation because of their direct integration in the designers workflow. As DFE is not standardized, it should be based on the reliable data from LCA. A connection between LCA and DFE offers the possibility to integrate environmental evaluation with tolerable effort directly in the design process while keeping the transparency and reliability of LCA.

Multi-dimensional modelling of the flow and combustion promises to become a useful optimisation tool for IC engine design. Currently, the total simulation time for an engine cycle is measured in weeks to months, thus preventing the routine use of CFD in the design process. Here, we shall describe three tools aimed at reducing the simulation time to less than a week. The rapid template-based mesher produces the computational mesh within 1-2 days. The parallel flow solver STAR-CD performs the flow simulation on a similar time-scale. The package is completed with COVISEMP, a parallel post-processor which allows real-time interaction with the data.

In the automotive industry, there is a continued need to improve the development process and handle the increasing complexity of the overall vehicle system. One major step in this process is a comprehensive and complementary approach to both simulation and testing. Knowledge of the overall dynamic vehicle behavior is becoming increasingly important for the development of new control concepts such as integrated vehicle dynamics control aiming to improve handling quality and ride comfort. However, with current well-established test systems, only separated and isolated aspects of vehicle dynamics can be evaluated. To address these challenges and further merge the link between simulation and testing, the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines and Automotive Engineering (IVK), University of Stuttgart is introducing a new Handling Roadway (HRW) Test System in cooperation with The Research Institute of Automotive Engineering and Vehicle Engines Stuttgart (FKFS) and MTS Systems Corporation.

In recent years, driving simulators have become a valuable tool in the automotive design and testing process. Yet, in the field of vehicle dynamics, most decisions are still based on test drives in real cars. One reason for this situation can be found in the fact that many driving simulators do not allow the driver to evaluate the handling qualities of a simulated vehicle. In a driving simulator, the motion cueing algorithm tries to represent the vehicle motion within the constrained motion envelope of the motion platform. By nature, this process leads to so called false cues where the motion of the platform is not in phase or moving in a different direction with respect to the vehicle motion. In a driving simulator with classical filter-based motion cueing, false cues make it considerably more difficult for the driver to rate vehicle dynamics.