Design of backdoor

                                                                                               Car Back Door Design

 

Aim: To design car back door from given styling surface data under given design rules and regulations.

Car Back Door and Components:

Introduction

    

It is a hinged board or door at the rear of the vehicle that can be moved up or down during loading and unloading.

Back Door is also referred as 'Hatch' or 'Tailgate' or 'Trunk-lid' or 'Boot-door'. Its the rearmost part of the vehicle which gives access to the trunk and has mounts for tail lamps, hinges, wiper motor, gas stayetc

Functions of the Backdoor:

• It protects the occupants and luggage from getting damaged.
• It houses assembly of tail lamps, wiper motor and other components.
• It serves as entry and exit point for luggage/passengers.
• It houses windshield glass which helps in rear visibility.
• Parking sensors, rear view camera are mounted on it.

Types of Backdoor

• Top mounted

These type of back doors are used in a station wagon, pickup truck and some other sports utility vehicles. Today’s modern cars use top mounted tailgating systems which are both powered and also gas stay supported. These tailgates provide greater rear visibility compared to other types.

• Side mounted

It is generally used in van type MPVs, SUVs, pickup truck vehicles. These side mounted door/barn doors are a lot easier compared to top mounted ones. These doors are generally small in size and can be easily accessed. These doors are more convenient for the goods handlers carrying lengthy objects, long pipes where one door is kept open. It also saves accidental head impacts. It is a lot easier to load /unload things in vehicles having side-mounted doors.

• Bottom mounted

Bottom type or split type backdoor system is used in estate type cars, pickup trucks and some luxury SUVs. These are most convenient type of backdoor in which the bottom split is used as a support or even as a table for the touring people.

Materials Selection: 

The selection of material plays a major role in determining the overall weight of the back door. The common materials used are Steel & Aluminum. The density of Steel is higher than Aluminum thus adding more weight to the door. The material used in the manufacturing of the backdoor depends upon the budget of the car, most low cost vehicles use steel as it is cheaper compared to Aluminium. Another aspect to be noted is that, if casted Aluminum parts are used instead of deep drawn steel parts there is no need of reinforcements and the overall weight of the car is reduced by approximately 5-10kg thus increasing the performance of the vehicle. Also the draft angle for casted parts is around 3 degrees while for deep drawn parts is around 7-10 degrees which helps in increasing the luggage/ cabin space.

Fig. above shows possible no. of parts in aluminium backdoor

Fig. above shows possible no. of parts in Steel backdoor

The below table gives a comparative information about Steel and Aluminium.

	Aluminium	Steel
Parts	Parts are casted	Parts are stamped
Reinforcements	Reinforcements can be neglected	Reinforcements are necessary
Thickness	Thickness can be varied	Thickness should be uniform
Weight	Lighter in weight	heavier in weight
Cost	Costly as compared to Steel	Cheap as compared to Aluminium
No. Of components	Less No. of components	More No. of components

               The back door is a hinged door/tailgate at the rear of the vehicle. It may be used for loading and unloading cargo, or to get passengers in and out, in case there are seats present at the rear. The back door comprises of certain components which form the back door assembly together.

                                                            Fig.1 Typical Car Back Door

                              The components of back door are as follows,

      

                                                             Fig. 2 seling flange

•  Inner pannel

               The inner panel, as the name suggests, is the inner part of the door. It is where most of the reinforcements and components are mounted. It is manufactured either by casting (aluminum) or sheet metal stamping (steel). Thickness of inner panel is 0.75 mm.

                                                                       Fig.3 Inner Panel

 

• Outer Panel

               As the name suggests, it is the outer part of the rear door and is mostly responsible for aesthetics of the vehicle. Outer and inner panels are connected by mastic sealants in center and by hemming process at edges. The outer door handle and in some cases, the number plate may also be installed on the outer panel of the back door. We have considered a 2-part outer panel for our design, outer upper panel and outer lower panel prospectively. Outer panel is manufacture by stamping sheet metal. Thickness for outer panel is 0.75 mm

                                                                      Fig.4 Outer Panel

 

• Reinforcements

               Reinforcements are provided to provide support and add extra material to the sheet metal part to increase its strength near component installation regions and minimize the impact of collisions. We have considered following reinforcements during our design. The reinforcements maybe manufactured by stamping. Thickness of all reinforcements is 1.5 mm.

                                       fig.5 Hinge and gas stay reinforcement

 

                                                  Fig.6  Wiper Motor Mounting Reinforcement

 

                                                            Fig.7 Latch Striker Reinforcement

 

• Gas Stay

               Gas stay is basically a gas spring that relies on elastic deformation of a compressed gas which is enclosed in a cylinder. It is used to reduce required effort while opening the back door. Although all the cars don’t come with gas stays, it may be required in case of a heavy back door.

       Fig.8 Typical Car Back Door Gas Stays (Highlighted)

 

• Wiper and wiper motor mounting

               As the name suggests, wiper is used to wipe off the dust and water from the rear windscreen of the vehicle.

                                         Fig.9 Car Back Door Wiper

 

• Hinges

               Hinges connect the door with the vehicle body and allow the door to rotate around a fixed axis for opening and closing movement. Generally, hinges are a 2-part assembly, where one part is bolted to door and other is bolted to vehicle body.

                                Fig.10  Car Back Door Hinges (Highlighted)

Design Methodology:

               We start with the styling surface that is provided to us, and consider top-down approach for this assembly modeling. First, we create the assembly and then create the components in the assembly file itself. Inner and outer panel are the largest parts and all other parts depend on them so we start with them. Also, the given styling surface is part of the outer panel so we create it first. Using various commands and features we design the outer panel from the styling surface. We have 2 parts for outer panel, which are separated by a flange, hence we create outer panel upper and lower respectively. They will be spot welded with each other. It is necessary to make sure that all the surfaces are properly joint to their adjacent surface and there are no disjoints at their intersection edges to avoid further errors. Also, Inner and outer panels are connected by hemming process so we can come back to outer panel and do that that after completion of inner panel.

                                                       Fig.11 Outer Panel Upper Part

 

                                                              Fig.12 Outer Panel Lower Part

 

               Now, as we know inner panel is at a particular distance from outer panel, we offset the outer panel surface and design inner panel on the same. Inner panel is important as most the mountings will be done on it. Before starting inner panel design, we need to define the tooling direction as a reference for manufacturing team. Then we design the inner panel.

                                                                 Fig.13 Tooling Direction

 

               While designing the inner panel we need to consider various factors like the mounting point positions, mastic sealant application positions and the cut outs in sheet to make access to tail light assembly easier. As the bottom center part of inner panel is not connected to outer panel, we need to create a surface that comes out and connects to outer panel as shown in the image. This part will be connected to outer panel using mastic sealant. Also, the hinge embosses must be taken by considering proper directions. The emboss surface must be parallel to z-axis to get proper geometry for the latch striker path curve. Then we draw a line connecting the hinges, such that it forms the hinge axis (axis around which the door rotates while opening or closing). Then we can draw a circle with center at the hinge axis and circumference passing somewhere around the emboss endcap. So that when we get the emboss for latch striker mounting, we can take the end cap by creating a plane normal to the path (using On Curve) in the direction normal to the path of striker. Thus, after some trial and error, we can adjust the emboss and the circle dimensions properly.

                                                                Fig.14 Latch Striker Path

 

                                                                          Fig. 15 Inner Panel

               As the inner and outer panel are connected by hemming process, we can complete the hemming after completion of inner panel. Now, as major parts are designed, we can move to reinforcements. It is fairly easy to design reinforcements as shown in image below and detailed images above as we can use the inner panel surfaces using Wave Geometry Linker into the corresponding reinforcement parts.

                                                    Fig. 16 Hemming process

 During hemming process multiple rollers are used which causes vibrations and stress concentrations at the some locations due to which design intent of the panel shouldn’t be changed (i.e the panel should spring back to original formation after roller is removed). But most of the time that is not the case at corners so to avoid that situtaion reliefs are provided at corners.

   

                                                              Fig. 17 corner relief

                                                              

Important features used while designing:

• Wave Geometry Linker – With this you can create, associative or linked copies of any entity of a part into other parts. It may be a surface, edge, curve, body, sketch etc. The changes made to the original entity will be reflected in the copy of that entity.
• Extract Body – It is used to create an associative body by extracting faces, entire body or region of faces.
• Bridge Curve – It helps to create a tangent blend curve between two objects. The objects may be edges or sketch curves.
• Sew – It combines sheet bodies together by sewing their common edges. There shouldn’t be any gaps larger than specified tolerance.
• Unsew – This command is used to separate the existing sheet body or solid body into multiple bodies.
• Projected Curve – It is used to project an existing curve/curves on a selected plane or surface by selecting a direction for projection.
• Trim Body – It is used to trim one or more bodies using a face or plane. You can also specify the bodies to retain and the bodies to discard.
• Offset Surface – It allows you to offset one or more existing surfaces.
• Offset Curve in Face – This command will allow you to offset particular edges or curves on selected faces.
• Trim Sheet – It is used to trim off a portion of a sheet body using curves, faces, edges or planes.
• Through Curves – It will allow you to create a body Through multiple sections, where it’s shape changes to pass through each section.
• Law Extension – This command extends a curve or edge to create a sheet body at desired angle length by changing the rules under angle law and length law.
• Trim and Extend – It helps you to trim and extend intersecting surfaces and make corner at their intersection.
• Face Blend – It creates fillets between faces.
• Edge Blend – It creates fillets on edges.
• Extend Sheet – It will allow you to extend an existing surface to required distance.
• Emboss – Emboss command creates an embossing by modifying a body with faces created by projecting a curve/section along a direction. You can modify the emboss using options like endcap location and draft angle.
• Mirror Geometry – As name suggests, it allows you to mirror geometries about selected plane or surface.
• Thicken – It is used to convert a surface to solid body by providing thickness.
• Extrude – It helps you to create a feature from a sketch. You are also able to create thin feature using a sketch or curve under this command.

 

               In order to make sure the drawing of inner panel body is proper; we do draft analysis. We need to define the drawing direction and select the inner panel body. We take limit angle as 5 degrees. The result of the draft analysis is as follows,

                                                          Fig.18 Draft Analysis Result

               Portions that require different manufacturing method, or are not in the direction of drawing may not be considered in draft analysis results.

Conclusion: Car back door was designed using the given styling surface, and under provided design regulations.