The Engineering of a Body Structure with Hydroformed Components

The paper examines the application of hydroforms to body structure design and presents application concepts for such formed components. The examination of a complete body structure employing a number of hydroforms both in the underframe and upper glass-house structure provides new learning for future applications. The Land Rover Freelander forms the basis for the comparison.

A pre-development project resulted in the design, engineering and building of body structures incorporating a number of hydroformed components as an integral theme (Figure 1). The project scope included mass reduction whilst maintaining performance targets and attributes. The project identified issues for product design and the processing of components.