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Structure–connection–performance integration lightweight optimisation design of multi-material automotive body skeleton

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Abstract

To improve the lightweight of the automotive body, the structure–connection–performance integration optimisation design was conducted for the multi-material body skeleton. The equivalent simplified joint model was established for dissimilar material self-piercing riveting (SPR) joints to address the problem that the finite element model of multi-material body skeleton was difficult to calculate due to the excessive number of elements of SPR joints. The rivet set coding technique was proposed to overcome the technical bottleneck that the SPR joint connection parameters cannot be integrated into the body structure–performance collaborative optimisation. The integrated optimisation parametric model of the structure–connection–performance of the multi-material body skeleton was established by combining structural parameterisation and mesh deformation techniques. The multi-objective automatic iterative optimisation of the body skeleton was achieved by using the RBFNN-Kriging hybrid surrogate model and NSGA-II, and the Pareto front was mined using AHP-TOPSIS method. The results show that the performance of the optimised body structure is significantly improved and fully meets the design requirements. The mass of the body skeleton is 116.88 kg, which is 28.62 kg lighter than the same size benchmark body skeleton, and the weight reduction ratio is 19.67%. A front-end structure of the body skeleton was developed and subjected to high-speed impact test, which validates the accuracy of the simulation analysis.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51975244).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering and Rail Transit, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China

    Shenhua Li & Chaohui Zhou

  2. State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Dengfeng Wang

  3. China Fire and Rescue Institute, Bei**g, China

    Shuang Wang

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  1. Shenhua Li
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  2. Dengfeng Wang
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  3. Shuang Wang
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  4. Chaohui Zhou
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Correspondence to Shenhua Li.

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Li, S., Wang, D., Wang, S. et al. Structure–connection–performance integration lightweight optimisation design of multi-material automotive body skeleton. Struct Multidisc Optim 66, 198 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-023-03656-z

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