Results of Successful Industry Research

Results of Successful Industry Research Aimed at Reducing Vehicle Weight
ACP design optimization process used to select efficient manufacturing processes

ETA’s Accelerated Concept to Product (ACP) process, an advanced product development process that uses design optimization technologies to provide lightweight design solutions, was used successfully in the Future Steel Vehicle (FSV) initiative.  The FSV initiative is led by WorldAutoSteel, the automotive group of the World Steel Association, which is seeking to reduce next generation vehicle weight by 35 percent or more.  ACP was used to identify and rank the most efficient manufacturing process for achieving mass reductions in each major vehicle component.

Research results for FSV phase 1 were presented by Jody Show from US Steel, Harry Singh from EDAG and Dr. Akbar Farahani from ETA in May 2010 at the Ninth Annual Great Designs in Steel (GDIS) seminar, in Livonia, Michigan.

Steel industry investment in future technology, FSV design and architecture, powertrain strategy for 2015 to 2020 and FSV design optimization methodology were presented by FSV presenter team.

The latest research focused on optimizing manufacturing of vehicle components to identify the most efficient process for reducing vehicle mass. For each component, four or five possible manufacturing processes were evaluated and ranked according to such criteria as sub-system mass, cost, and life cycle assessment (LCA) savings, which measures the overall reduction in carbon dioxide for all phases of a vehicle’s life.

“In addition to helping in the design of components to achieve weight reduction, ACP has now been shown to be extremely useful for selecting the optimal manufacturing processes for each of a vehicle’s major components,” said ETA’s Dr. Akbar Farahani, vice president of engineering and consulting. “One component might be most efficiently manufactured using roll forming, another using hot stamping, while others would use stamping, hydroforming, or extrusion processes.”

ACP was applied in 2007 for industry research led by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) as part of the Auto/Steel Partnership, and dubbed the Future Generation Passenger Compartment (FGPC) project. It resulted in a conceptual optimization methodology for realizing a mass reduction of 30 percent when compared with a typical passenger compartment of the same vehicle class. These conceptual ideas were then applied to a production vehicle, indicating that overall mass could be reduced by as much as 20 percent with current manufacturing methods. 

The success of the FGPC work then led to the Future Steel Vehicle (FSV) initiative, which seeks to extend the positive results and develop designs that can reduce vehicle weight by 30 percent or more. Early research showed that manufacturing constraints played a role in limiting mass reductions, and the recently announced review of manufacturing optimization is expected to move the group one step closer to its goal.

The FSV team is currently extending the latest research, using the most efficient methods for each component and putting it together into a final design. “We will be preparing two more design iterations to ensure that all the components are efficiently optimized,” said Dr. Farahani. The work will be completed by fall 2010, and the results will be presented at next year’s GDIS conference.

About Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA)
Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA) was established in 1983 by advanced product development engineers working as structural analysts for the world’s largest automotive manufacturers.  ETA’s expertise in the areas of vehicle durability, NVH, metal forming, crashworthiness, occupant safety and product design have provided an intimate knowledge of the challenges and needs of the product development engineer.  Proactive in the creation and implementation of new analysis methods and software, ETA is the developer of the Inventium Suite, DYNAFORM and VPG.  ETA is a subsidiary of Cranes Software International Limited (CSIL).

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