Automotive Body Structures' Section and Joint Enhancement towards NVH performance

A primary focus of an automotive architecture development is to efficiently distribute the mass, energy, and stiffness throughout the body structure. The car body structure is integrated with load carrying members, pillar structures, panels, and joints. These structural members play a significant role in meeting the body in white (BIW) performance within weight targets. The initial development stage of the vehicle architecture has a flexibility to change the sections and joints as compared to the later stages. An effective utilization of the primary stage of the design will minimize the efforts during the later stage of the performance improvements. One of the critical performance metrics of the BIW is noise vibration and harshness (NVH). For better NVH performance, the BIW must meet certain stiffness and mass requirement that is specific to the vehicle configuration and type. A good design strategy of the section parameters of structural members along with stiffer joints will assist significantly in achieving desired NVH performance. This includes global as well as local stiffness and minimized radiation from the BIW panels which improvise the noise and vibration performance at vehicle level. The mass and cost are integral part of the performance so the design proposal should tradeoff between better section and stiffer joints. This paper focuses on design methodology for BIW structural members sections and joints at architecture development phase to get an enhanced NVH performances without compromising the mass and cost.