This article featured in the October 2021 issue of the 2021 NAFEMS World Congress edition of BENCHMARK

Two macro trends have influenced the automotive industry in the last few years: On the one hand, there is the imperative to reduce emissions – above all, CO2. Electrification is a key element of achieving this goal. In addition, the use of fuel cells can also help reduce the environmental footprint. Both these propulsion systems require energy storage systems – a high voltage battery or a hydrogen pressurised tank – that must be kept safe in all circumstances. Additionally, the electric motors do not necessarily have to be located in the front compartment any more as they have been in almost all standard vehicles in the case of internal combustion engines. All this has obvious implications for vehicle layouts. On the other hand, we have an increasing number of assistance systems. These are likely to have an effect on not only how occupants are arranged in the vehicle – just imagine driverless cars – but also on accident scenarios. Hence, vehicle design is currently changing more within a few years than it has changed in several decades.

The change of vehicle layouts means that the traditional layout of the structure may well not be the optimum any more, previous constraints may be gone, new constraints may be set, there is the freedom to design in different ways. Hence the concept phase of the vehicle development process becomes even more important than ever, since the biggest impact on mass and cost reduction can be achieved in these early phases. This in turn means that it is beneficial to start the utilisation of numerical optimisation procedures as early as possible.