Translators for Design Guidance of Joints in Automotive Structures

A methodology is presented for developing two tools for design guidance of joints in car bodies. The first tool rapidly predicts the performance characteristics of a given joint. The second finds a joint design that meets given performance targets and satisfies packaging and manufacturing constraints. These tools translate the design parameters defining the geometry of a joint into performance characteristics of that joint and vice-versa. The methodology is demonstrated on a joint of an actual car.