Automotive door closing effort uncertainty analysis based on Monte Carlo simulation method

Among quality issues, door closing effort is a vehicle characteristic that strongly affects the customer first opinion about vehicle design. The door closing effort is affected by uncertainties in materials and manufacturing processes. Present paper presents a reliability-based method to evaluate the uncertainties associated to door closing effort due to manufacturing. Reliability analysis is used to quantify the probability that door closing effort is greater than a target value associated to variations in door gap which is strongly influenced by the upper and lower hinges position. Monte Carlo Simulation is used to define door closing effort variability due to variation of hinges position. The uncertainty of this position is modeled by a probability distribution defined based on data collected from the assembly process. Door effort variability is defined by a probability density function. Simulated distribution is compared to experimentally based door effort analysis showing a very good agreement between them.