SMC Heavy Duty Truck Hood; 12 Months From Concept to Production

Simultaneous engineering techniques have been applied to a SMC truck hood to reduce the lead-time for production introduction from 22 months to 12 months. Several other technologies were also applied to insure a successful product introduction in this reduced timeframe: computer definition of the hood surface for accuracy, RTM prototype tooling for early design tryout and durability testing, Finite Element Analysis to further confirm durability of the hood structure, and brittle lacquer combined with strain gaging to provide life data using a hydraulic road simulator for load inputs.