A design study of a body structure consist of standardized components as module

Abstract

As manufacturing has begun to move from mass production to mass customization, manufacturing industries are currently constructing the architecture to provide wide variety of products in countries around the world. Modular design and standardization is effective for mass customization. In recent years, modular design techniques have been researched in vehicle development. Then, car manufacturers have been announcing their own architecture about the car design. We have focused on pipe-based components as the standardized member of body structure. Since the pipe is a general-purpose member, we can get them easily. In this study, we have developed new design techniques for body structure consist of the pipe-based standardized components. Firstly, we have designed base frame layout by topology optimization formulated Min-Max approach for multiple load cases. Secondly, we have calculated cross-sectional design parameters by discrete design value table and fully stressed design. Using these techniques based on modular design rules, we can obtain body structure consisting of standardized components which are subjected to stress lower than the yield strength. As a case study, we have applied our unique modular design techniques to the rear body structure model.