National Conference on Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization

23rd - 24th, March 2018, IISc, Bengaluru

Development of Multidisciplinary Design optimization methodology for BIW weight

optimization

Pratik Lahane1, Varma Pakalapati2, Ganesh Gadekar3

1 Tata Motors Limited, Pune, pratik.lahane@tatamotors.com
2Tata Motors Limited, Pune, pvscsvarma@tatamotors.com
3 Tata Motors Limited, Pune, ganesh.gadekar@tatamotors.com

Abstract
The Vehicle structural performance disciplines generally comprises of Ride and Handling, Crash & Safety, Noise
Vibration and Harshness (NVH) and Durability. It is important for a vehicle manufacture to carter equal attention
in meeting performance in all this disciplines. The dynamic automobile industry demands for a shorter product
development life cycle with minimum manufacturing costs, light weight vehicle design to improve fuel efficiency
and emissions reduction.
Advanced Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools enabled development of the structural design of the vehicle
BIW in virtual domain meeting target structural performance requirements for durability, crash, NVH domains .
However, the current CAE methodology consists of optimizing the vehicle BIW design separately in each of the
CAE domains resulting into conflicting requirements with very little scope of arriving at optimum light weight
BIW design. In order to reduce the weight of vehicle BIW design without sacrificing its performance
requirements, multi-disciplinary optimization (MDO) techniques play key role. MDO tools with its state of the art
optimization algorithms, design exploration techniques and response surface techniques helps to arrive at an
optimal BIW design which fulfils all the performance criteria of multiple CAE domains along enabling significant
weight reduction.
This paper focuses on development of MDO methodology for arriving at an optimal BIW design which satisfies
the Durability and NVH performance requirements . The load cases which were considered are Global Stiffness,
Modal, Stiffness and Mobility performance. Design Of Experiments (DOE) study was done which supplies a
sequence of different design configurations to perform a preliminary exploration of the design space. The specified
DOE Sequence was applied for the selection of the appropriate optimization strategy. ModeFrontier was used for
multi-objective and multi-disciplinary optimization with the coupling of MSC Nastran solver. It enabled the
automation of the design simulation process and facilitated analytic decision making to choose the optimal design.
The response surface methodology (RSM) was used to explore the relationships between the design variables and
response variables. The critical design regions were identified using the sensitivity analysis which depicts the
contribution of each of the design variables on the response variable. The BIW design was optimized considering
the load-cases of Durability and NVH with overall objective of weight reduction and with the constraint of
fulfilling the performance criteria.
Keywords: CAE, MDO, Durability, NVH, DOE, RSM

1. Introduction
Several CAE domains such as Crash, Durability, NVH, Aero thermal and Aerodynamics are involved in the
product development cycle in an automotive industry. For a passenger car design, the various domain’s
performance aspects cannot be considered as isolated entities for design development purpose as they mutually
influence one or more other domain’s performance . Hence it is important to carry out the iterative process of
design improvement together as a single entity for all the simulation domain areas. Traditionally, each of the
individual domain carry out simulations and design performance analysis to meet certain pre-defined product
performance targets. However, the design changes happen in parallel within each domain with parallel
communication with the design group. This iterative loop continues until each of the CAE group meets the
specified performance targets which mostly involves the penalty of mass addition. Since a light weight car design
is always desirable, the design further undergoes an optimization loop. However, under the traditional approach,
this optimization loop happens individually in each of the CAE domains as shown in Figure 1. This method may
arrive at a feasible solution which meet all product performance constraints , but this feasible design probably
may not be an optimal light weight design (Refer Figure 2)
However, the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) approach makes it possible to find the optimal design
considering the complex performance requirements of all the CAE domains combined together. This approach
leads to arriving at an optimal design solution i.e. minimized mass for vehicle BIW meeting all performance
requirements . This paper describes how the MDO methodology was developed for BIW weight optimization
meeting target performance requirements for Durability and NVH domains. The performance attributes

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considered are Global and local stiffness, Modal performance and attachment point stiffness and mobility. Gauges
of around 140 panels were used as design variables. Specific targets for stiffness, mobility and modal frequencies
were set towards achieving the optimum design.

Figure 1: Traditional optimization involving multiple disciplines.

Figure 2: Traditional optimization resulting in a feasible but non-optimal solution

2. Methodology
The MDO process which was followed is summarized in Figure 3. It is necessary to have a numerically stable
detailed FE models which accurately captures the behavior of the vehicle. The multidisciplinary approach was
used, in which responses from both Durability and NVH domain were used for optimization.
Preparation Define Objectives, Constraints and
Setup Design Variable

Variable
Find important Design Variables
Screening

Design of Define DOE, run experiments

Experiment and extract results

Metamodel Build, check and compare

Creation metamodels

Optimization Find optimum solutions

Check virtual results with real

Confirmation
runs

Figure 3: MDO process flow

2.1 Problem definition
The objective was to develop a methodology using multidisciplinary approach for BIW weight optimization
involving Durability and NVH’s load-cases together. Thickness of about 140 BIW panels were selected as design
variables as shown in Figure 4. The various responses considered for this optimization study are as follows:
1. Global Stiffness (Durability)

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2. Local Stiffness (Durability)
3. Modal performance (NVH)
4. Attachment point stiffness (NVH)
5. Attachment point mobility (NVH)

Figure 4: BIW panels considered as design variables

Latin Hypercube algorithm was used for generating a uniform DOE across available design space. In-house
developed scripts were used to extract the results obtained from Nastran output files for each of the responses.
Sensitivity analysis was used to detect the most important input variables by assessing the main effects of design
variables on responses. Both interpolating and approximating algorithm were used to train the RSM and
performance co-efficient such as R-squared and Mean absolute errors were used to compare the RSM quality.
Virtual optimization was performed using genetic algorithms. The virtual solution which consisted of optimized
thickness for the design variables was then validated with the real run.

2.2 Results and Discussion

Using the MDO approach methodology, mass saving of 15 kg was achieved which met all the Durability and NVH
constraints. The history chart plotted shows how the mass was optimized against the no. of virtual runs in Figure 5.
The sensitivity analysis for one of the modal responses is shown in Figure 6. This gives us an insight on which top
20 design variable contribute to almost 90% of the modal performance.

Feasible Solution
Optimal Feasible Solution
Mass (kg)

Design IDs

Figure 5: Mass optimization history chart

0.20 100
90
80
0.15
70
% Contribution

Threshold
60
Threshold

% Contribution
0.10 50
40
30
0.05
20
10
0.00 0
DV1
DV2
DV3
DV4
DV5
DV6
DV7
DV8
DV9
DV10
DV11
DV12
DV13
DV14
DV15
DV16
DV17
DV18
DV19
DV20

No. of Desgin Variables

Figure 6: Sensitivity analysis

The bubble 4D chart for one of the attachment point (refer Figure 7) shows the visualization of the dynamic
stiffness response along with mass details . Once the optimized solution was obtained, the optimal design with the

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optimal BIW thickness values was checked for its performance confirmation with virtual simulation runs. Table 1
shows the % error between the MDO predicted and actual virtual runs for the modal response load case.

Figure7: 4D bubble chart for attachment point stiffness and mass

Table 1: Error difference between Real and Virtual Runs

Response % Error Response % Error

Mode_1 0.28% Mode_7 -0.38%
Mode_2 0.22% Mode_8 -0.38%
Mode_3 0.14% Mode_9 2.22%
Mode_4 0.56% Mode_10 0.13%
Mode_5 0.56% Mode_11 0.33%
Mode_6 0.16% Mode_12 0.65%

2.3 Benefits
The benefits obtained from the MDO approach are as follows:
1. Single unified approach providing optimal BIW designs considering various CAE domains together.
2. Enables to set up an automated process where direct results can be obtained to arrive at a logical conclusion.
3. Light weight , mass saving designs are obtained leading overall cost reduction of the vehicle.
4. Sensitivity analysis and critical design region can be identified which enables to achieve better performance.
5. Intra-disciplinary trade-off on Performance criteria's and performance v/s mass trade off can be analyzed.

2.4 Conclusion
1. MDO approach provides an optimal feasible solution considering different load cases from various CAE
domains together.
2. MDO can be viewed as an important process for a vehicle development cycle as significant mass saving can be
obtained which leads to reduced project costs and better vehicle perforamce
3. In this study, 15 kg mass saving was obtained fulfilling the Durability and NVH constraints.
4. Only thickness changes were considered as design variables for this study. Use of material and shape changes as
design variables will further lead to greater optimized design

3. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Mr. Rohit Vaidya (Head, Digital Solutions CAE) for giving us the opportunity to work on
this challenging project and to present this paper in the national conference on multidisciplinary design, analysis,
and optimization. The authors would also like to thank Mr. Sandeep Rapol for helping us providing support
required at the appropriate time of the project.

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4. References
[1] A Sheldon, E. Helwig, Y. Cho, Investigation and Application of Multi-Disciplinary Optimization for
Automotive Body-in-White Development, 8th European LS-DYNA Users Conference, 2011.
[2] N. Hampl. G. Nammalwar, Automated Multi-Disciplinary Optimization (MDO)
Process Development and Application on Vehicle Program, Weimarer Optimierungs- und Stochastiktage 8.0,
2011.