A Practical CAE-Driven Approach for Weight Optimization of an Existing Vehicle Body

Abstract

This paper deals with weight optimization of a current vehicle body without affecting its styling, natural frequencies and front crashworthiness performance. A CAE-driven approach is adopted using commercially available OptiStruct and LS-DYNA solvers. While an automated iterative approach is used for size- and topology-based weight optimization with natural frequencies as constraints, crashworthiness requirements are incorporated into the weight-optimized model using engineering insight. It is found that significant weight reduction of an existing vehicle platform can be achieved through a methodical and ingenious utilization of optimization and crash simulation tools as demonstrated in the present study.