Product Development Process (PDP)

Example: DaimlerChrysler Crossfire Project Plan 18

Months from Concept Phase to Start of Production
(SOP)
• First Motor Cars 1886, Carl Benz (1844 – 1929)
• First Fatal Accident with a Petrol Car & First Killed
Pedestrian Bridgette Driscoll, London 17th August
1896: Mrs. Bridgette Driscoll was the first person
killed by a car driving with ca. 6.4 kph when she
left the Crystal Palace in London. The motorist
claimed that when he saw the pedestrian, he rang
his bell and shouted "Stand back! She died
minutes later of head injuries.
• Safe Road Behavior Motorists and Others: To force
drivers to slow down in village areas, people span
wires across the streets. Hence car companies
built „wire cutters― or „wire lifters― to avoid
injuries to the drivers.
• First Fatalities USA: In 1913, more than 4,000
people died in car accidents. By the 1930s, more
than 30,000 people died every year. Regarding
fatalities relative to the population, the highest
peak occurred before WW II.
• Safety Engineering First Activities: To lower
accident and death rates, safety advocates
stressed the Three E: – Engineering, –
Enforcement, – Education. Early safety efforts
focused on educating drivers and pedestrians,
rather than designing and producing safer
automobiles and highways. The main questions
became: – What is a safe road environment? –
What is safe road behavior? – What is a safe car
design? – How should we drive safely? – What
legislation is required?
• First Standard Test: The first standardized test was
the rigid wall test (full overlap). Here, the total
kinetic energy must be absorbed by the vehicle
itself. The full front structure is used, the
deformation is well distributed, and the intrusion
is small. No rotation occurs and no shear effects
by intruding objects happen.
• Basic Crash Mechanics:
Rigid Wall Tests: Testing vehicles with different mass
but with the same velocity means testing them with
different kinetic energy. Thus, the test severity for
heavier cars is higher (it corresponds to a car-to-car
test of two identical cars). The front of heavier cars is
hence often stiffer than that of small cars. This
stiffness incompatibility of the front end of vehicles is
an artefact of manufacturers seeking to maximize
performance on car-to-wall tests. Normally heavier
cars are also larger, and they might have more free
crush length. Hence, the high stiffness is not necessary
for heavier cars.
Crumple Zones: Kamal proposed in 1970 (probably for
the first time) a simple model for simulating crash
responses of a vehicle in frontal impacts. It is based on
lumped (i.e. rigid) masses, which relate to nonlinear
springs. The rigid masses represent parts of the
vehicle, e.g. passenger cell or engine, which do not
experience appreciable deformations during an actual
crash. The nonlinear springs represent the deformable
part of the structure, and their characteristics are
obtained by performing quasi -static crush tests on the
structural components.
Vehicle Regulations:
• United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNECE:
First Agreement 1958 “Agreement concerning the
adoption of uniform technical prescriptions for
wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be
fitted and/or be used on wheeled vehicles and the
conditions for reciprocal recognition of approvals
granted on the basis of these prescriptions.” Any
country has authority to test and approve any
manufacturer's design of a regulated product. Once
any acceding country grants a type of approval, every
other acceding country is obliged to honor that type
of approval and regard that vehicle or item of motor
vehicle equipment as legal for import, sale, and use.
US and Canada did not join in 1958. UN regulations
are not recognized. UN-compliant vehicles and
equipment are not authorized for import, sale, or use
in the US, unless they are tested to be compliant with
US car safety laws, or for limited non driving use.
In addition to the Revised 1958 Agreement, the EU
negotiated a new international agreement, known as
the 1998 Global Agreement. Its purpose is to further
enhance the process of international harmonization
by the development of global technical regulations
(GTR) which may also cover countries which are not
contracting parties to the 1958 Agreement. UN Global
Technical Regulations can be amended when
transposed to national law (almost total
harmonization).
• European Experimental Vehicles Committee
(EEVC):
The EEVC was founded in 1970 in response to the US
Department of Transportation's initiative for an
international program on Experimental Safety
Vehicles. It was created as a committee of European
government representatives and has no executive or
legislative function. The Committee maintains liaison protected against unreasonable risk of death or
between various European national R&D activities to injury in the event crashes do occur.
increase safety and abate noise and pollution. The •
EEVC steering committee, consisting of
representatives from several European Nations,
initiates research work in several automotive working
areas. These research tasks are carried out by several
specialists Working Groups who operate for over a
period of several years giving advice to the Steering
Committee who then, […] recommends future courses
of action that would lead to improved vehicles with
respect to safety.”

Current EEVC activities: • Advanced Anthropometric

Crash Dummies • Side Impact Protection •
Compatibility • Pedestrian Safety • Child Protection
(cars, buses, coaches) • Rear Impact Protection /
Whiplash • Accident studies • Virtual testing

Crash Regulations Europe and USA:

• The UNECE Transport Division defines regulations

since 1958.
• The World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle
Regulations (UN-ECE WP.29) offers a framework
for globally harmonized regulations on vehicles. It
is an institutional framework of the United
Nations.
• Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS)
are US national regulations.
• They are the USA counterpart to the UNECE
Regulations, which are recognized to varying
degree by most countries except the United
States.
• Canada has comparable standards (CMVSS).

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
(ECE)
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS):
• Series 100: Active Safety and Crash Avoidance:
The FMVSS standards define the minimum safety
performance requirements for motor vehicles or
items of motor vehicle equipment. These are
regulations to which manufacturers of motor
vehicle and equipment items must conform and
certify compliance.
• Series 200/300: Passive Safety and
Crashworthiness: These requirements are
specified in such a manner that the public is
protected against unreasonable risk of crashes
occurring as a result of the design, construction,
or performance of motor vehicles and is also
Restraint Systems: Seat Belt Usage (UK)
Not belting up:
• Ca. 7% of car drivers fail to belt up.
• Belting in the front seats: women (96%) / men
(90%).
• Around a third of adults don't bother to belt up in
the back.
The excuses:
• People say they forget and one in six say they
don't bother if they are only going a short
distance.
• A third of people say that belting up in the back
doesn't occur to them and one in six say it's
uncomfortable or they couldn't find the buckle.
One in twenty don't buckle up in the back because
they feel safer.
Taxis:

• Nearly a third rarely or never belt up in the back of

a taxi.

The Law:

• Drivers and front seat passengers in cars must

wear a seat belt unless they have a medical
exemption certificate.
• Children under the age of 14, travelling in the rear
of a car that has appropriate restraints, must belt
up.
• Adults travelling in the rear of a car must also use
seat belts, if they are fitted. It is the responsibility
of the adult passenger (not the driver) to ensure
that they are using the seat belt. Zoning of the Front Structure: The front end is the
Pretensioning of the Belt main deformation zone in frontal impacts; it should be
designed to assure a gradually increasing stiffness.
• Early fixation of the occupants to the vehicle Three zones are to be designed:
deceleration
• Limitation of the load on the shoulder to 1.5 kN – • Repair zone
2.0 kN. • Partner protection zone
• Set-up of a suitable load on the retractor to • Self-protection zone
minimize the film spool effect.
• Transfer of a high load input to the pelvis area by
means of a pretensioner at the anchor plate.
• From the biomechanical aspect, higher forces (up
to 4 kN) than in the shoulder area can be
tolerated.
• The deflection of the thorax can be reduced by 20
% by means of an additional tensioner at the
anchor plate.
• Loose belt length is leading to worse loadings on
the occupants in case of frontal impacts and can
induce the submarining.
 • Standard of (ultra) high strength steels are used
(e.g. UHSS).
• It should be designed to assure a progressive local
folding. Steel’s unique attributes allow it to
collapse like an accordion to absorb crash energy.

• Although the Octagon is the best cross section, it is

seldom realized, because often the package is not
allowing such a voluminous cross section.

Front Side Member:

• The energy absorbed by the front end is mainly

absorbed by the front side member (72%).
• The rest is taken by the wheelhouses (22%) and by
the fenders (6%).
• The amount of energy absorbed in the front side
member depends on the deformation mode.
• The front side member is normally a U-section
with end plate, or two half shells made of sheet
steel.
• Structural components to bridge the front footwell
area; compression forces should be transmitted
directly between the front and rear of the vehicle
(inertia forces).
• Structural components which channel crash forces
into the A-pillars, side doors and door sills rather than
into the firewall area.
• For the bonnet, the pedestrian impact requires that
a compromise between compliance and stiffness is
created.
• A homogeneous bonnet is often preferred.
B-Pillar:
• Absence of a crush zone for lateral impacts.
• Only door and rocker panel reduce the intrusion.
• Reduction of the intruding speed as soon as
possible.
• The reaction time for the sensor system is very small
History of FEM Codes (Crash):
• In 1986 Hallquist developed at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory the finite element
program DYNA3D, which is based on an explicit
integration method combined with a vectorization for
Cray super computers.
• Belytschko and Marchertas adapted the code
WHAMS from the nuclear industry for crash
simulation.
• These two codes have formed the fundamentals of
current commercial software available for crash
analysis.
• Thus, all concepts have similar principles.
• There are currently 4 main commercial FEM codes
for crash: ABAQUS, LS-DYNA, PAM-CRASH and
RADIOSS
First Full Vehicle Models:
• First finite element computations for crash were
performed by Belytschko et al. (1975).
• First full car crash analysis was realized by Benson
and Hallquist (1986) and Du Bois et al. (1986).
• The Figure on the right-hand side shows the finite
element model developed by Bretz et al. for BMW
also in 1986.
• It consists of 2,800 finite shell elements with 2,604
nodes, where the smallest element was of a size of 18
mm.
• The rear and the engine were assumed to be rigid.
• An explicit FE-code and special contact algorithms
were applied.
Current Crash Analysis:

• At the beginning of crash simulations, FE models

were generated for each load case.

• Currently, one common model is created, which is

also used for other topics (NVH=noise, vibration, and
harshness).

• A current FE model is developed in about 8 weeks.

• They are developed in a modular form such that a

single module can be exchanged easily. Each part must
be validated.

• In current models, the characteristic length of an

element is about 5mm, and the time step is circa 10-6
s.
Shell Elements:
• FE models with up to 3 million elements are realized.
• Thin shell elements can be employed to discretize
structures made of plates and shells.

• For elasticity problems the number of integration

points across the element thickness is not important
while for non-linear stress distributions due to
plastifications, a numerical integration is required.

• Normally, 3 integration points are sufficient although

for the sake of precision 5 points are commonly used.
Restricting to one integration point would degenerate
N dcn the shell element to a membrane element where only
normal stresses are accounted for.

• Most of the elements have 5 degrees of freedom

(DOF), i.e. two rotations and three displacements.

• All elements have C0 -continuity.

• The element formulation is based on the shell

theory of Mindlin, which means that plane sections
remain plane but not necessarily perpendicular to the
mid-surface.