Search Results

Nowadays, OEM’s challenge is to harmonize vehicle’s performance, design and cost. Furthermore, all of these antagonistic key performance factors must be integrated in a much faster pace than ever before in the automotive industry. Thinner parts and low cost materials Body-in-White (BIW) systems struggles to deliver the same/higher performance and quality levels as the previous generations. On top of that, considering that BIW structures typifies almost 30% in a vehicle mass, and almost 40% of a vehicle cost, focusing in this system, this paper will study the body upper structure, more specifically its roof panels. Currently, almost all small vehicles are composed by three to four roof bows (figure 1) within its structure. A Roof Bow is a sheet metal part, usually spot welded to the BIW inner frame, forming the inner structure of the vehicle body. Its primary function is to supporting the roof panel loads, such as Oil Canning and local stiffness.

Nowadays, meeting the increasing vehicles’ body structure performance requirements without affecting the vehicles’ mass has become a challenge for OEMs. To do so, automakers are deploying new and different sorts of materials combinations on the Body structure. It is known that the usage of high strength steel stamped parts, such as Press Hardened Steel (PHS), in specific Body structure regions, may reduce the need of local reinforcements or further parts, allowing the vehicle to reach the desired performance level while avoiding mass increase. One of the most common methods used to join PHS parts and cold rolled stamped parts is spot welding. This paper studies alternative joint methods between PHS parts and low alloy sheet metal stamped parts, both zinc coated, when spot-weld application is not feasible due to specific body structure joints constructions.