Automotive Door Element Composite Material Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
The challenge is to design a tailgate for a pickup truck cargo box that balances impact resistance with reduced weight, while avoiding issues like thickening or necking during cold stamping of high-strength steel materials.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a door element with a planar panel and protruding edges, where the panel and edges are made from different materials, allowing for optimal material selection for stamping without thickening or necking, with the panel made from high-strength steel and edges made from a more formable material with lower yield strength, attached via bolting or welding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If high-strength steel material is used for the door element to improve impact resistance, then the resistance to deformation and energy absorption are improved, but the formability during cold stamping deteriorates leading to thickening or necking
Solution Approach 1:
The door element is divided into two distinct parts: a door element part made of high-strength steel and separate joining parts made of more formable material. This segmentation allows each part to be optimized independently - the door element part provides impact resistance while the joining parts provide ease of manufacture during stamping operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses composite construction by combining high-strength steel material for the door element part with a different, more formable material for the joining parts. This composite approach enables the structure to achieve both high strength properties and good formability, resolving the contradiction between impact resistance and ease of manufacture.
2Weight of moving object
If the thickness of the tailgate is reduced to decrease vehicle weight, then the energy consumption is reduced, but the resistance to impact loads deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
By using high-strength steel material with tensile strength greater than 780 MPa for the door element part, the invention achieves high resistance to impact loads with reduced thickness. The composite construction with optimized material selection allows thin-walled structures to maintain high strength properties, enabling weight reduction without compromising impact resistance.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the material parameters by selecting high-strength steel with specific tensile strength properties (>780 MPa) and optimizing the thickness parameters of the door element part. This parameter optimization allows achieving the required strength-to-weight ratio, reducing vehicle weight while maintaining impact resistance.
3Device complexity
If the door element is formed as a single piece to simplify manufacturing, then the manufacturing process is simplified, but the ability to optimize different regions for different functions is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The door element is segmented into a door element part and separate joining parts, allowing different materials and manufacturing processes to be optimized for each region. The door element part can be made of high-strength steel optimized for impact resistance, while joining parts can be made of more formable materials optimized for stamping operations, achieving functional adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies local quality by using different materials for different regions of the door element assembly. The door element part uses high-strength steel optimized for structural integrity and impact resistance, while the joining parts use materials optimized for formability and joining performance. This local optimization resolves the contradiction between manufacturing simplicity and material adaptability.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for producing a door element comprising a planar panel (30) and protruding edges (32a, 32b, 32c), each edge (32a, 32b, 32c) being joined to at least one adjacent edge (32a, 32b, 32c) by a joining edge, comprising: —providing a rectangular planar blank, —cutting out said blank to retrieve a corner part being adapted to form a joining edge (34), —stamping the cut-out blank to obtain a door element part (52) comprising the panel (30) and the edges (32a, 32b, 32c), said edges (32a, 32b, 32c) being separated one from the others, —joining the adjacent edges (32a, 32b, 32c) by attaching a joining part (54) to the door element part, said joining part (54) being made of a material different from the material of the door element part (52) and forming a joining edge.