Finite Element Analysis Of Automobile Instrument Panel Assembly And Optimization Of Its Structural Parameters

Automobile instrument panel assembly is one of the most important components in automobile interior decoration,and also one of the components with the most complex structure and manufacturing process.Besides aesthetics,its functionality,comfort,and safety should also be taken into account in the design process of the automobile instrument panel.The rigidity and modality of the automobile instrument panel assembly will affect the comfort of automobile occupants,and its head impact performance will affect the safety of automobile occupants.In this paper,an instrument panel assembly of a domestic MPV was set as the research object,and the finite element analysis model of the instrument panel assembly was established,after which the stiffness modal analysis and head impact analysis were conducted.Then,the multi-disciplinary optimization method was then applied to optimize the thickness parameters of the main components of the instrument panel assembly,to enhance its stiffness modal performance in the precondition of satisfying the head impact performance requirement without any mass increase.The main contents of this paper are as follows:(1)The finite element analysis model of the instrument panel assembly was established by using the software Hyper Works from Altair Company in the US.The optistruct solver was leveraged for modal analysis and stiffness analysis.The instrument panel assembly's first-order modal frequency was compared with its vibration test results to verify the accuracy of the model.(2)Based on the optistruct solver,the sensitivity analysis of the thickness parameters of various components of the instrument panel assembly was conducted to select the appropriate optimized design variables.(3)Based on isight,the multidisciplinary optimization design software,the optimized latin hypercube sampling method was used to carry out the experimental design of the optimization design variables and conduct the finite element analysis,after which the approximate models of each performance of the instrument panel assembly were built by different methods,respectively,and their precision analyses were then performed.Finally,the approximate models with the highest accuracy of each performance were selected to replace the finite element analysis model.(4)Based on the approximation models above,the Non-Linear Programming by Quadratic Lagrangian(NLPQL)was applied to conduct multi-objective optimization of the thickness parameters of the main components of the instrument panel assembly,and the reliability of the optimized models has been verified using finite element analysis.(5)Based on the optimization results above,a finite element analysis model of the instrument panel was established with reference to the head impact related regulations in GB-11552 and the model was then solved by the ls-dyna solver to verify that whether the optimized instrument panel assembly can satisfy the head impact performance requirements of the regulations for instrument panel.