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2023 | Book

Life Cycle Design & Engineering of Lightweight Multi-Material Automotive Body Parts

Results from the BMBF sponsored collaborative research project MultiMaK2

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About this book

This book presents the final report of the collaborative research project "MultiMaK2": MultiMaK2 contributed to the development of multi-material component concepts in large-scale automotive production. Whithin the project new methods in conceptual design of lightweight components were developed at the example of roof cross member and transmission tunnels. A concurrent Life Cycle Design & Engineering approach led to identifying eco- and cost efficient component alternatives. This includes evaluation tools for the concepts' full life cycle. Further, methods to integrate that knowledge into automotive engineering processes have been established based on principles of visual analytics. That brings forward a tight integration of data, engineering models and results visualization towards an informed knowledge building across disciplines. MultiMaK2 also compiled and structured design guidelines within a knowledge management system. All methods and tools have been embedded within the Life Cycle Design & Engineering Lab in the Open Hybrid LabFactory.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The present book presents selected results of the research project MultiMaK2 that has been carried out at the Research Campus Open Hybrid LabFactory in Wolfsburg, Germany. The project aimed at providing innovative engineering methods and tools that help to bring forward lightweight automotive body parts with low environmental impacts over their life cycle. The engineering of lightweight body parts is influenced by innovative materials and production technologies that enable new designs. However, the indluence on resulting life cycle impacts is not transparent at engineering stages. To bridge that gap, the project promotes an integrated Life Cycle Design & Engineering when engineering lightweight automotive body parts. Therefore, the research fields of body part design, body part manufacturing as well as a concurrent life cycle engineering are introduced, and key research demands are formulated. On this basis, the subsequent chapters of this book present research results of the MultiMaK2 project.
Sebastian Kleemann, Alexander Kaluza, Tim Fröhlich, Sebastian Gellrich, Antal Dér, Thomas Vietor, Christoph Herrmann
Chapter 2. Development of Automotive Body Parts in Multi-Material Design—Processes and Tools
Abstract
Besides the various opportunities of multi-material design, such as weight reduction or function integration, additional challenges occur within the design process. On the one hand, the rising complexity of multi-material body parts requires an additional assistance for the designer. On the other hand, it is of great importance to estimate the developed concepts’ properties—environmental properties in particular—at a very early stage of development in order to focus on promising concepts. To solve these challenges, this chapter introduces a procedure for the development of multi-material body parts on different levels of abstraction. It aims at reducing the design task’s complexity already at a very early stage of design. Among all considered properties, the focus is especially on the environmental properties over the entire life cycle. The procedure is applied on two body parts of the SuperLIGHT-CAR in a case study in order to develop multi-material body parts and validate the procedure as well as the additional tools developed within the project.
Tim Fröhlich, Sebastian Kleemann, Thomas Vietor, Lars Spresny, Makram Abdelwahed, Andreas Kabelitz, Fabian Preller
Chapter 3. Knowledge Management
Abstract
Multi-material-design is a promising approach for the automotive industry to operate economical lightweight design. Combining metallic materials with composites and short-fibre reinforced plastics enables to develop lightweight components with superior mechanical properties. One of the central challenges is that most car body developers in the automotive industry have gathered little experience with plastics, composites and multi-material designs. One approach of product development to meet this challenge is the provision of knowledge, for example through design rules and design principles. The scope of this chapter is to provide knowledge for developing multi-material designs. First, relevant knowledge is identified, and an access concept for the design rules is developed. Furthermore, what will be developed is a text similarity algorithm for identifying similar rules. Afterwards, the knowledge management system will be prototypically implemented and applied to two case studies.
Sebastian Kleemann
Chapter 4. Levers of Cyber Physical Production Systems for Multi-Material Body Parts Manufacturing
Abstract
The manufacturing of multi-material components for the automotive industry adds additional process steps to the traditional process chain while also employing new manufacturing technologies. Both factors usually lead to higher production costs as well as higher energy demands and environmental impacts. Cyber physical production systems (CPPS) are a promising approach to support the design of multi-material components as well as the dimensioning and operation of the production processes. In the following article, the levers of CPPS for the manufacturing of multi-material components are discussed and illustrated within an automated calculation of component-specific energy consumption.
Sebastian Gellrich, Christoph Herrmann, Sebastian Thiede
Chapter 5. Modeling and Simulation of New Manufacturing Processes for Multi-Material Lightweight Body Parts to Estimate Environmental Impacts
Abstract
Recent years introduced process and material innovations in the design and manufacturing of lightweight body parts. Lightweight materials and new manufacturing processes often carry a higher environmental burden in earlier life cycle stages. The prospective life cycle evaluation of newly developed manufacturing processes and related production systems remains to this day a challenging task. Against this background, this chapter introduces a modeling and simulation approach for determining the potential environmental impacts of new manufacturing processes and production systems for multi-material lightweight body parts.
Antal Dér, Christopher Schmidt, Christoph Herrmann, Sebastian Thiede
Chapter 6. Consideration of Environmental Impacts of Automotive Lightweight Body Parts During the Conceptual Design Stage
Abstract
Designing lightweight hybrid multi-material parts for automotive body applications is subject to a large solution space. This results in a large variety of concept alternatives that are able to fulfil the technical performance criteria. Towards prioritizing eco-efficient concepts, life cycle environmental impacts need to be determined at an early design stage. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a system analysis methodology that enables a quantitative analysis of energy and resource flows and associated environmental impacts. LCA models need to reflect the application and combination of different materials, manufacturing process chains and end-of-life treatments as well as different scenarios within the vehicle use stage. At the same time, LCA models need to cope with limited information availability at this early stage of design. Therefore, the current chapter provides an overview on methodological aspects in evaluating lightweight body part concepts for different life cycle scenarios. A software toolchain is implemented and applied in the course of two case studies.
Alexander Kaluza, Andreas Genest, Tobias Steinert, Andreas Schiffleitner, Christoph Herrmann
Chapter 7. Life Cycle Design and Engineering Lab in the Open Hybrid LabFactory
Abstract
Engineering processes for innovative and eco-efficient automotive components show a high degree of labour division. Domain-specific information needs to be exchanged between actors and serves as input for decision-making, e.g. information on part performance, weight, cost or environmental impact. In current engineering practice, this cross-domain communication tends to be streamlined up to the level of selected and simplified KPI that represent the progress of individual disciplines. This hinders a holistic improvement of products and processes. Research within the MultiMaK2 project emphasizes the importance of a joint knowledge building between engineering disciplines and aims at creating a cross-domain understanding of root causes for hotspots and goal conflicts. Therefore, the Life Cycle Design & Engineering Lab was established at the Open Hybrid LabFactory. It objectifies the methodological approach of visual analytics through domain spanning software toolchains, centralized data acquisition, analytics methods as well as a variety of visualization tools and hardware elements that serve the described goals.
Alexander Kaluza, Sebastian Gellrich, Sebastian Thiede, Christoph Herrmann
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Life Cycle Design & Engineering of Lightweight Multi-Material Automotive Body Parts
Editor
Thomas Vietor
Copyright Year
2023
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-662-65273-2
Print ISBN
978-3-662-65272-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65273-2

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