In the current competitive automobile market, with growing knowledge and concern for occupant and vulnerable road user safety, design & engineering of passenger cars in stipulated time is a challenge. As front styling is a crucial factor, early involvement of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) through front loading helps reduce the product development time considerably with a pedestrian friendly engineered design.
The present paper explains how initial inputs are given to styling & engineering teams during early stages of product development where availability of Computer Aided Design (CAD) data is minimal. Critical load paths were identified and shape of the front end was modified accordingly. Various locations of hinge mechanism were evaluated to reduce the severity of injury in the head impact zone. Sufficient gaps between the exterior surfaces and interior hard points were worked upon to reduce the impact values. Lower & upper energy absorbers for leg impact were proposed and tuned to meet the injury criteria. Stiffness of parts in the impact zone was varied and collapsible head lamp brackets were implemented to bring down the injury values. Optimization of the outer and inner bonnet was also done through a variation study.
Thus by these concepts, a FE to CAD driven design approach instead of CAD to FE was implemented and the results were correlated with physical tests.’