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Designing a vehicle body involves meeting numerous performance requirements related to different attributes such as NVH, Durability, Safety, and others. Multi-Disciplinary Optimization (MDO) is an efficient way to develop a design that optimizes vehicle performance while minimizing the weight. Since a body design evolves in course of the product development cycle, it is essential to repeat the MDO process several times as a design matures and more accurate data become available. This paper presents a real life application of the MDO process to reduce weight while optimizing performance over the design cycle of the 2015 Mustang. The paper discusses the timing and results of the applied Multi-Disciplinary Optimization process. The attributes considered during optimization include Safety, Durability and Body NVH. Several iterations of MDO have been performed at different milestones in the design cycle leading to a significant weight reduction of the already optimized design by over 16kg.

Growing demand for fuel-efficient or light weight vehicle has become a challenge for vehicle development. Upfront engineering process provides more opportunities for engineers to improve body weight efficiency. To accelerate the upfront body development process, the parametric concept modeling technology is commonly employed to generate parametric three-dimensional geometry, joints, modular components, concept welding, and finite element meshes. The topology optimization which determines the best structural layout without weight penalty has also been used during the conceptual design stage. The objective of this research is to explore the feasibility of integrating the advanced parametric concept modeling and both topology optimization and structural optimization technologies into upfront body architecture development process.