A Study On The Weight-reduction Of Automobile Door Assembly

With the development of technology in auto industry, energy saving, environmentprotecting, safety, comfortable, intelligent and internet are the major trends. Especially, theenergy saving and environment protecting are critical relevant with sustainabledevelopmentof human beings. Hence, fuel economy improved and CO2, harmful gas and particlesemissions reduced are two major researching directions in auto industry. Reduced the weightof auto is the best way to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions. Relevant researchesare showed that, if10%weight of car reduced, the fuel efficiency can be improved about6~8%and consumption can be reduced5~6%. Under no-load state,70%fuel consumption is causedby the weight of car. And, the doors assembly is the heaviest assembly in car. Hence,reduction the weight of doors assembly is very critical for lightweight of automobile.Theweight of doors assembly reduced and the performanceof every critical characteristics ofautomobile ensured are worthy researched topic.The paperis based on certain autonomous passenger car program developed.At the stageof body development, FEA (Finite Element Structural Analysis) and3D design are used toanalyze the static stiffness, bend, and torsion and collision performance of body. According tothe most representative assemble of body, the door assembles are lightweight analyzed. Thesuitable parts of anterior side door assemble, rear side door assemble and hatchback tail doorassemble are selected to lightweight optimization design based on respective properties. Thetraditional materials are presented by lightweight ones besides the part structure optimization.The stiffness, modal and collision performances of lightweight door assemble are validatedby FEA.The modal, stiffness and outer plate dent resistance in anterior, rear side and hatchbackdoor assemble are tested, the front100%overlap rigid counterguard collision,40%overlapand side deformed counterguard collision of the whole vehicle are tested. The results showthat all the test results meet the design target requirements, the door assembles have differentdegree lightweight effect, the material cost has different decreased, and the lightweight designvehicle collision performance is better than C-NCAP. The rationality and feasibility of thedoor assemble lightweight design are validated.