The body performance of an electrical vehicle is significantly affected by the structural integration of the stiff battery package. In addition, the body topology of future electrical vehicles/mobility solutions will differ clearly from conventional ones, e.g. no B-pillar. This makes the current body requirement such as static torsional stiffness less relevant.
In order to meet the new challenges during the virtual development phase a new body evaluation method has been developed. The method uses the dynamic distortion in all openings in a complete vehicle setup to calculate the so-called Opening Distortion Fingerprint (ODF). The ODF evaluation is performed in time and frequency domain. The application of this new method is shown in both test and simulation.
There are two main areas of application. One of them is Perceived Quality where the ODF can be used as a new body assessment criterion. This also includes the calculation of an equivalent static load (ESL) based on the ODF, which can be used for optimization purposes. The second area is Vehicle Dynamics. The ODF, together with the operating deflection shape (ODS) enables a deeper analysis of the interaction between the wheel suspension/drive line and the body. A test example is presented where a dominant pitch mode of the drive line could be predicted based on the ODF and then confirmed by the ODS.