Robust Design of Side Impact Simulation Using FEM Based on VCM Concept

It is well-known that robust design approach is effective to reduce variance of response caused by variation of random variable. However, it has been difficult to apply this approach to crash analysis by FEM, because large amount of simulations are required and each simulation takes a long CPU time. In this paper, VCM (Variable Complexity Approximation Modeling) concept is introduced into TAGUCHI robust design for side impact simulations using FEM. In this study, 25 plate thickness are treated as design variables, and the crash angle and position in both of front-rear direction and height of MDB are treated as random variables. As a result of this work, occupation space is increased by 13% and those deviations are reduced by 19% in limited computer resource, even though mass of body is increased 0.45% comparing with original design.