Design of a vehicle system involves satisfying competing objectives for various attributes Noise and Vibration (NVH), Durability, Safety, and Vehicle Dynamics.
To achieve an optimal design, dedicated CAE analysis tools are used to evaluate the functional vehicle performances for the different attributes and to quantify trade-offs when analyzing different design variants.
Presently, CAE tools have been playing a reactive role in this engineering process. Different design proposals (CAD) are verified against functional requirements and feedback is given to the design department for the next design iteration.
This paper aims at describing an engineering process where CAE (simulation) plays a more proactive role in the design process. Based on new CAE approaches that allow to implement design modifications directly into simulation models, design proposals can be formulated that will ensure that product qualities such as vibration response, safety, fatigue life, are taken into account for the definition of the next design version.