Development of Automotive FlexBody Chassis Structure in Conceptual Design Phase using Additive Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is one of the fastest manufacturing process in automotive industry. AM has lot of flexibility compared to the traditional manufacturing process and this gives freedom to the designer. Now a day the maximum number of automotive parts are manufactured through different AM systems depends on the functionality and manufacturing cost or time. This work deals with an automotive FlexBody Space-Frame Structure prototype fabrication. In this procedure, CAD Modeling is carried out using Creo 2.0, Finite Element Modeling and Analysis is carried out using HyperWorks 13.0. Using AM technique, an automotive FlexBody Space-Frame Structure is fabricated which is designed in conceptual design phase. This work also represents the methodology to join the parts of an automotive Space-Frame Structure made by dissimilar materials to achieve the maximum possible weight reduction with crashworthy performance as per the legal regulations. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.