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Floor consoles or Center consoles are an indispensable part of Automotive Cockpit systems in modern passenger vehicles. It occupies space between the front seats in the car and has a lot of utilities and functionalities. The center console design can be very simple as just providing an enclosure for the gear shifter and parking brake and as complex as having storage bins with armrest which can slide. Now-a-days a lot of functionalities are being provided by the center console such as housing the AC vents at the rear, provision for USB and power outlets etc. All these utilities within the center console demand a certain amount of structural rigidity to meet the functional requirements as well as applicable regulatory requirements. The console mounting bracket usually serves to attach the plastic center console to the steel underbody. It also acts as a load carrier for the console and its design influences the overall stiffness and modal characteristics of the console system.

In current scenario, there is an increasing need to have faster product development and achieve the optimum design quickly. In an automobile air conditioning system, the main function of HVAC third row floor duct is to get the sufficient airflow from the rear heating ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system and to provide the sufficient airflow within the leg locations of passenger. Apart from airflow and temperature, fatigue strength of the duct is one of the important factors that need to be considered while designing and optimizing the duct. The challenging task is to package the duct below the carpet within the constrained space and the duct should withstand the load applied by the passenger leg and the luggage. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been used extensively to validate the stress and deformation of the duct under different loading conditions applied over the duct system.

In recent years, there is increasing demand for every CAE engineer on their confidence level of the virtual simulation results due to the upfront robust design requirement during early stage of an automotive product development. Apart from vehicle feel factor NVH characteristics, there are certain vibration target requirements at system or component level which need to be addressed during design stage itself in order to achieve the desired functioning during vehicle operating conditions. Vehicle passive safety system is one which primarily consists of acceleration sensors, control module and air-bag deployment system. Control module’s decision is based on accelerometer sensor signals so that its mounting locations should meet the sufficient inertance or dynamic stiffness performance in order to avoid distortion in signals due to its structural resonances.

Modern day customer awareness on noise and comfort is extremely increasing, which demands OEM manufacturers to focus on NVH attributes and to meet environmental legislative requirements. Noise generation mechanism in Air Intake System (AIS) is one of the major sources for vehicle interior noise and it occurs mainly because of air column oscillation by sharp pressure pulsation from opening and closing of valves in engine cylinders. Air intake system designer has immense challenges to attenuate intake noise during design stage, in order to meet the vehicle interior noise requirements by using multiple resonators to tune the desired broad band frequencies and to choose the optimum number of resonators. The placement of resonator on both the clean duct and dirty sides is also a key challenge for better noise reduction from air intake system.

Current generation passenger vehicles are built with several electronic sensors and modules which are required for the functioning of passive safety systems. These sensors and modules are mounted on the vehicle body at locations chosen to meet safety functionality requirements. They are mounted on pillars or even directly on panels based on specific packaging requirements. The body panel or pillar poses local structural resonances and its dynamic behavior can directly affect the functioning of these sensors and modules. Hence a specific inertance performance level at the mounting locations is required for the proper functioning of those sensors and modules. Drive point modal frequency response function (FRF) analysis, at full vehicle model for the frequency range up to 1000 Hz, is performed using finite element method (FEM) and verified against the target level along with test correlation.