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An Instrument Panel (IP) cockpit is one of the most complex vehicle systems, not only because of the large number of components, but also because of the numerous design variations available. The OEM can realize maximum benefit when the IP cockpit is assembled as a module. This requires increased performance attributes including safety, durability, and thermal performance, while meeting styling and packaging constraints, and optimizing the program imperatives of mass and cost. The design concept discussed in this paper consists of two main injection molded parts that are vibration welded to form a stiff structure. The steering column is attached to the cowl and plastic structure by a separate steel column support. The plastic IP structure with integrated ducts is designed and developed to enable the IP cockpit to be a modular system while realizing the benefits of mass and cost reduction.

Numerical simulations are widely used to predict the performance of products in the automotive development process. In particular, ventilation and defrost performances of automotive HVAC system are developed according to design variables and environmental conditions based on CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). Recently, as improvement on both computer hardware performance and analysis technology continues, the usage of simulation has been increasing accordingly. However, the cost of software license also increases in such development environments. In this paper, we introduce our CFD program with OpenFOAM, which is the free, open source CFD software, to simulate flow characteristics of ventilation and defrost in automobile. This program includes self-developed GUI similar to commercial CFD code, two-layer realizable κ-ε turbulence model to secure numerical stability, and fluid film model to check the defrost phenomena with time dependence from OpenFOAM libraries.

In this study, we developed the defrost performance evaluation technology using the multi-objective optimization method based on the CFD. The defrosting is one of the key factors to ensure the drivers’ safety using the forced flow having proper temperature from HVAC during drive. There are many factors affecting the defrost performance, but the configurations of guide-vane and discharge angles in the center DEF(defrosting) duct section which are main design factors of the defrost performance in automotive, so these were set to the design parameters for this study. For the shape-optimization study, the discharge mass flow rate from the HVAC which is transferred to the windshield and the discharge areas in the center defrost duct were set to the response parameters. And then, the standard deviation value of mass flow rate on the selected discharge areas checking the uniformity of discharge flow was set to the objective function to find the optimal design.

Requirements of side curtain airbag have continued to increase. The revised SINCAP, FMVSS-226 ejection mitigation and small overlap of IIHS had added these requirements. To meet all the requirements, high inflator energy and complex cushion shape became necessary. Such situations increased possibility of cushion failure while deploying. Unfortunately, all the design verification tests are usually completed in a relatively latter stage of development and repetitive testing is needed to consider large dispersion of failure probability distribution. Therefore, verification and design improvement by numerical simulation in an early stage are desirable. A simulation method which can verify CAB deployment was developed in this study. The developed method has three distinct features. Firstly, nonlinear fabric materials and membrane finite elements are used to consider fracture of cushion fabric. Secondly, a pre-simulation procedure had been established.

In this paper an effective technology of virtual thermal test of disc brake with several advanced analytic techniques was presented. With the virtual thermal test process, thermal performance of brake system could be easily evaluated without any possibility of great errors that used to happen in the past. In addition to the classical result of CFD, this virtual thermal test produced several valuable applications such as thermal deformation of rotor, optimization of thermal performance and estimation of braking distance.