COMPUTER AIDED CONCEPT DESIGN OF A SPORTS CAR CHASSIS SYSTEM

Details are given of a process used to design a chassis system for a sports car with a non structural plastic body skin. The main concern was to achieve a design with adequate stiffness to promote good handling and ensure that whole vehicle vibration would be satisfactorily controlled. The aim was to complete the study before the design became locked by the prototype build programme. Simple, cost effective computer modelling was used to predict the stiffness of an initial scheme. This process gave the designers useful insight into the characteristics of the structure and highlighted several areas of concern. Design improvements were formulated from the understanding of the structure acquired from the modelling. This resulted in a doubling of the torsional stiffness with only minimal weight increase. In the second phase the chassis model was developed into a dynamic simulation of the whole vehicle. This allowed optimisation of the engine mounts and the structure design to improve primary and secondary ride and avoid body vibration problems. The use of these computer aided concept design techniques resulted in a final structure with dynamic characteristics comparable with current unibody saloon cars. For the covering abstract of the conference see TRIS 391971. (TRRL)

Media Info

  • Features: Figures; Tables;
  • Pagination: p. 91-99

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00391985
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
  • ISBN: 0-85298-539-8
  • Files: ITRD, TRIS
  • Created Date: Apr 29 1985 12:00AM