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A compiled method of the programmed load spectrum, which can simplify and accelerate the fatigue bench test of a car body, is proposed and its effectiveness is checked by the fatigue simulation. By using the multi-body dynamics model with a satisfactory accuracy, the virtual iteration is applied to cascade body loads from the wheel hubs. Based on the rain-flow counting method and statistics theory, the distributions of the body loads are analyzed, and then the programmed load spectrum is compiled and simplified. Through comparative study, the simulation results of random and programmed load spectrum are found to agree well with each other in terms of the damage distribution and fatigue life, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the presented method.

With the rapidly developing automotive industry and stricter environmental protection laws and regulations, lightweight materials, advanced manufacturing processes and structural optimization methods are widely used in body design. Therefore, in order to evaluate and improve the pedestrian protection during a collision, this paper presents an impact simulation modeling and structural optimization method for a sport utility vehicle engine hood made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). Head injury criterion (HIC) was used to evaluate the performance of the hood in this regard. The inner panel and the outer panel of CFRP hood were discretized by shell elements in LS_DYNA. The Mat54-55 card was used to define the mechanical properties of the CFRP hood. In order to reduce the computational costs, just the parts contacted with the hood were modeled. The simulations were done in the prescribed 30 impact points.

Thin-walled structures have been widely used in automobile body design because of its good lightweight and superior mechanical properties. For the energy-absorbing box of the automobile, it is necessary to consider its working conditions under the axial and oblique impact. In this paper, a novel hierarchical honeycomb is proposed and used as filler for thin-walled structures. Meanwhile, the crashworthiness performances of the conventional honeycomb-filled and the hierarchical honeycomb-filled thin-walled structures under different impact conditions are systematically studied. The results indicate the energy absorption of the hierarchical honeycomb-filled thin-walled structure is higher than that of the conventional honeycomb-filled thin-walled structure, and the impact angle has significant effects on the energy absorption performance of the hierarchical honeycomb-filled structure.

The frame of a low-speed electric vehicle was treated as the research object in the paper. The fatigue load of the frame was analyzed with multi-body dynamics method and the fatigue life of frame was analyzed with the nominal stress method. Firstly, the multi-body dynamics model of the vehicle was established and the multi-body dynamics simulation was carried out to simulate the condition where the vehicle used to travel. The fatigue load history of the frame was obtained from the simulation. Secondly, the amplitude-frequency characteristic of the fatigue load was analyzed. The frequency of the fatigue load mainly focused on 0~20HZ from the analysis. Thirdly, the modal of frame was analyzed. As the frequency of the fatigue load was less than the natural frequency of the frame, the quasi-static method was selected to calculate the stress history of the frame. Next, the fatigue life of the frame was analyzed based on S-N curve.

The multi-body dynamics simulation and physical iteration were carried out based on the 4-channel road simulation bench, the solution of fatigue test bench which was suitable for cab with frame and suspension was designed. Large load and displacement above the suspension can be loaded on the test bench, and the same weak position of cab exposed on the road test can be assessed well on the fatigue test bench. The effectiveness of the bench test solution was verified though comparative study. And it has important reference for the same type of cab assembly with suspension in the fatigue bench test. According to the durability specifications of cab assembly, a multi-body dynamics model with a satisfactory accuracy was built. And the fixture check and virtual iteration analysis were used to verify the effectiveness of the solution. According to the road load signal analysis and multi-body dynamics analysis results, the test bench with linear guide and spherical joint was built.

To solve the problem of serious roller wear and improve the smoothness of the sliding door motion process, the rigid-flexible coupling multi-body model of the vehicle sliding door was built in ADAMS. Force boundary conditions of the model were determined to meet the speed requirement of monitoring point and time requirement of door opening-closing process according to the bench test specification. The results of dynamic simulation agreed well with that of test so the practicability and credibility of the model was verified. In the optimization of the ride comfort of the sliding door, two different schemes were proposed. The one was to optimize the position of hinge pivots and the other was to optimize the structural parameters of the middle guide. The impact load of lead roller on middle guide, the curvature of the motion trajectory and angular acceleration of the sliding door centroid were taken as optimization objectives.

Lightweight automobile has an important role in saving the energy, improving the fuel economy and reducing the exhaust emission. However, reducing the mass of the automobile need to meet the structural and NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) performance requirements. With the rapid development of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) technology, more and more people tend to research the complex engineering application problem by computer simulation. An important challenge in today's simulation is the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) of an automobile, including mass, stiffness and modal etc. This paper presents a MDO study in a minicar hatchback.

As the international community strengthens the control of carbon dioxide emissions, electric vehicles have gradually become a substitute for internal combustion engine vehicles. The battery pack is one of the most important components of electric vehicles. The strength and fatigue performance of the battery support plate not only affect the performance of the vehicle but also concern the safety of the driver. In the present study, the finite element model of a battery pack for fatigue analysis is completely established. The random vibration stress response analysis and acceleration power spectral density response analysis of the support plate for the battery pack are carried out, and the accuracy of the finite element model is verified by a random vibration test.

In this paper, an equivalent conversion method is proposed to apply the six-dimensional force road spectrum of the four-axle vehicle on the same platform to the three-axle through the axle load comparison. Further, the feasibility of the devolved equivalent conversion method is verified, and the fatigue performance improvement of the wishbone support structure of a commercial vehicle is finally achieved. Specifically, firstly, the load spectrum at each attachment point of the suspension for the three-axle vehicle is obtained through the iteration of the multi-body dynamic model. Furthermore, the finite element model of the suspension for the three-axle vehicle is established; the analysis of fatigue life for the suspension structure is performed by extracting stress amplitude through the multi-axis cyclic counting method and calculating equivalent force amplitude through McDiarmid’s criterion, combined with the SN curve of the material.

The displacement of the shaft head fails to be accurately measured while the three-axle heavy-duty truck is driving on the reinforced pavement. In order to obtain accurate fatigue load spectrum of the suspension bracket, the acceleration signals of the shaft heads of the suspension obtained by the reinforced pavement test measurement are virtually iterated as responses. A more accurate model of the rigid-flexible coupled multi-body dynamics (MBD) of the whole vehicle is established by introducing a flexible frame based on the comprehensive modal theory. Furthermore, the vertical displacements of the shaft heads are obtained by the reverse solution of the virtual iterative method with well-pleasing precision. The accuracy of the virtual iteration is verified by comparing the simulation results with the vertical acceleration of the shaft head under the reinforced pavement in the time domain and damage domain.

With the growing prosperity of the long-distance freight and urban logistics industry, the demand for cargo trucks is gradually increasing. The connecting bracket is the critical connecting part of the truck chassis, which bears the load transmitted by the road excitation and reduces the damage to the frame caused by the load. However, the occurrence of rough road conditions is inevitable in heavy-duty transportation. In this paper, road durability tests and fatigue life analysis are carried out on the original structure to ensure the safety of the vehicle. Based on the known boundary and load constraints, a lightweight and high-performance structure is obtained through size optimization, as the original structure cannot meet the performance requirements. Firstly, the road test was conducted on the truck where the original bracket structure is located.

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites have gained particular interests due to their high specific modulus, high strength, lightweight and resistance to environment. In the automotive industry, numerous studies have been ongoing to replace the metal components with CFRP for the purpose of weight saving. One of the significant benefits of CFRP laminates is the ability of tailoring fiber orientation and ply thickness to meet the acceptable level of structural performance with little waste of material capability. This study focused on the concurrent optimization of ply orientation and thickness for CFRP laminated engine hood, which was based on the gradient-based discrete material and thickness optimization (DMTO) method. Two manufactural constraints, namely contiguity and intermediate void constraints, were taken into account in the optimization problem to reduce the potential risk of cracking matrix of CFRP.

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composite materials have gained particular interests due to their high specific modulus, high strength, lightweight and perfect corrosion resistance. However, in reality, CFRP composite materials cannot be used alone in some critical places such as positions of joints with hinges, locks. Therefore, metal reinforcements are usually necessary in local positions to prevent structure damage. Besides, if uncertainties present, obtained optimal structures may experience in failures as the optimization usually pushes solutions to the boundaries of constraints and has no room for tolerance and uncertainties, so robust optimization should be considered to accommodate the uncertainties in practice. This paper proposes a mixed topology method to optimize metal and carbon fiber reinforced plastic composite materials simultaneously under nondeterministic load with random magnitude and direction.

As a potential material for lightweight vehicle, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) has proven to perform well in optical behavior and weather resistance. However, the application in automotive glazing has seldom been studied. This paper investigates the defrost performance of PMMA rear window using both numerical and experimental methods. The finite element analysis (FEA) results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. Based on the validated finite element model, we further optimized the defrost efficiency by changing the arrangement of heating lines. The results demonstrated the frost layer on the vision-related region of PMMA rear window can melt within 30 minutes, which meets the requirement of defrost efficiency.

The performance of the rear axle plays an important role in the performance of vehicle, and its fatigue durability is an integral part in the vehicle development. Taking a SUV model as the research subject, a new methodology of multi-channel spindle coupled road simulator and fatigue simulation analysis for rear axle assembly was introduced in the paper, aiming to address the fatigue design and its verification for the rear axle in the development phase. Firstly, road loads in the proving ground was collected by arranging proper sensors. Secondly, physical iteration was performed on the multichannel spindle coupled road simulator by taking six component forces at the wheel hub as the target signals. Then, after the time waveform replication of the loads the durability test was conducted. Finally, the validated simulation model was successfully implemented to improve the fatigue life of the axle.

Lightweight design is a key factor in general engineering design practice, however, it often conflicts with fatigue durability. This paper presents a way for improving the effectiveness of fatigue performance dominated optimization, demonstrated through a case study on suspension brackets for heavy-duty vehicles. This case study is based on random load data collected from fatigue durability tests in proving grounds, and fatigue failures of the heavy-duty vehicle suspension brackets were observed and recorded during the tests. Multi-objective fatigue optimization was introduced by employing multiaxial time-domain fatigue analysis under random loads combined with the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II with archives.