Appropriate structural analysis and optimization methods are of great significance for the conceptual design of automotive body-in-white (BIW) structure. This paper simplifies BIW structure as a spatial semi-rigid fra...
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Appropriate structural analysis and optimization methods are of great significance for the conceptual design of automotive body-in-white (BIW) structure. This paper simplifies BIW structure as a spatial semi-rigid framed structure to provide early-stage predictions. Then a novel exact transfer stiffness matrix method (TSMM) is proposed for both static and dynamic analyses of three-dimensional semi-rigid framed structures. The matrix storage and equation solution techniques for large-scale engineering structures are also considered. Additionally, a size optimization mathematical model for BIW conceptual structure is formulated and solved by genetic algorithm (GA). Afterwards, to promote the conceptual design of BIW structure, an object-oriented matlab toolbox, based on TSMM, is developed. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) and strategy design pattern are employed to facilitate the development of the toolbox. Distributed parallel computing technique is adopted to speed up the former sequential optimization algorithm with simple modifications. Lastly, the validity of this easy-used toolbox is demonstrated by a benchmarking auto-body. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Automotive body frame comprises semi-rigid connected thin-walled beams (TWBs) that are fabricated from several stamped metal sheets. At conceptual design stage, cross-sectional shape design of the frame is a critical ...
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Automotive body frame comprises semi-rigid connected thin-walled beams (TWBs) that are fabricated from several stamped metal sheets. At conceptual design stage, cross-sectional shape design of the frame is a critical and intractable technique. In practice, design engineers mostly rely on empirical and intuitive trial-and-error approach to make decisions on the design of cross-sectional shape. This approach is laborious, time-consuming and unreliable, thus this article proposes a two-level multiple cross-sectional shape optimization approach. Our previously proposed transfer stiffness matrix method (TSMM) is adopted for the exact static and dynamic analyses of the frame. The dynamic stiffness matrix is refined by Love's rod theory to take into account Poisson's ratio effect. Moreover, scale vector method is introduced to remarkably reduce design variables. Then the shape optimization problem is formulated as a mass minimization problem, with exact static stiffness, dynamic frequency stiffness and four manufacturing constraints. Genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to solve the constrained nonlinear optimization problem. Afterwards, numerical examples with both of top-level and low-level shape optimization are carried out to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method. At last, parallel computing is introduced to notably speed up the optimization, and the shape optimization method is integrated into our object-oriented matlab toolbox to promote the conceptual development of auto-body.
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