Hood design-Week 2

CAR HOOD DESIGN CHALLENGE

Aim: To design car hood in NX using given master section and provided design parameters.

Introduction:-

Hood is main component of a car at the front portion. It is used to decorate the car & add luxurious look. The shape of the bonnet is made aerodynamic in order to minimize the air effect.

Hood Master Section

Hood design consideration:-

The hood of a car is considered as the frontal BIW enclosure component. Bonnets are designed to reduce air resistance as the air flows around the car. Apart from this, bonnets are also designed to meet several other requirements. They serve a great deal of purpose in protecting the passengers inside the car & the pedestrians in the event of an accident. It also acts as the cover for the engine.

• The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) is a European car safety performance assessment program which has developed test specifications & rating systems for assessing pedestrian injuries during impacts with the front of vehicles such test include a series of tests using impacts designed to bio-mimic a collision at speed of 40 km/h.
• They describe a situation in which a pedestrian is situated laterally & a car first hits one of his legs. Test are conducted on the leg, upper leg & most importantly the head, as head trauma is most commonly responsible for casualties.
• So to avoid severe injuries to the head, the high impact area for adults & children are subjected to less thickness. Also no reinforcement should be provided in that area as during head collision, the hood will absrob the head impact energy leading to collapse of the hood & thus protecting severe head injury.
• Another important criteria for the hood design is the protection of the occupants inside the car during front collision. The design of the hood should be in a such a way that the during the collision, the force should travel in the upward direction through the embosses & directed towards the body of car. Thus protecting the occupants inside.

Following parts are using in hood assembly for this report,

1. Hood outer panel
2. Hood inner panel
3. Hinge assembly
4. Striker assembly
5. Reinforcement

Hood thickness-

Outer panel thickness= 0.75 mm

Inner panel thickness= 0.75 mm

Reinforcement thickness= 1.5 mm

Inner Panel-

• In the inner panel only we can research & implement the safety of pedestrians & as well as the driver. In this panel only we can attach the reinforcement, embossed, mastic points etc.
• It is an object of the present invention to provide a hood inner panel capable of reduction of a reaction force of the hood inner panel even if a level of deformation of a hood of a vehicle increases, & ensuring a sufficient energy absorption capacity.

Outer Panel-

We can also call it as cover of inner panel. It is the part, which gives luxurious look to the hood or bonnet. Outer & inner panel can not join by any welding process like spot welding or rivet, which spoil the outer look of a car. The outer panel is generally extracted model from the prototype design.

Hinge Assembly-

Hinge is a component that fixes the hood to the fenders of the car. The latch must be fixed perpendicular to the hinge axis so that the hood opens or closes properly.

Striker Assembly-

Latch & striker is used for locking the hood with the car. It is usually placed on the space provided on the inner panel.

Rainforcement-

The reinforcement basically provides strength to the components. Here, the latch need reinforcement as they are assembled components its thickness is 1.5 mm

The process that involved in designing hood as a sheet metal operations are as follows

• Hemming
• Deep drawing
• Punch cutting or piercing
• Blanking
• Mastic Sealant Provision
• Embossing

Hemming-

• Hemming is a sheet metal forming process in which sheets are joined by bending it usually to 180 degree. Automotive body panels & parts such as deck-lids, trunk-lids, doors, hoods & tailgates are formed by hemming processes.
• Roll hemming is carried out incrementally with a hemming roller. An industrial robot guides the hemming roller & forms the flange. Roll hemming operation can also be divided into several pre-hemming & final hemming process steps.
• Coventional die hemming is suitable for mass production. In die hemming, the flange is folded over the entire length with a hemming tool. Normally the actual hemming is a result of a forming operation in which the flange is formed with a hemming tool after the drawing & trimming operations have been completed.

While doing the hemming process a relief angle is formed as a product of hemming when attaining at the corner of the sheet.

Deep Drawing-

• Deep drawing is a manufacturing process that is used extensively in the forming of sheet metal into a cup or box-like structures. Pots & pans for cooking, containers, sinks, automobile parts, such as panel & gas tanks, are among a few of the items manufactured by sheet metal deep drawing.
• A deep drawing of sheet metal is performed with a punch and die. The punch is the desired shape of the base of the part, once drawn. The die cavity matches the punch and is a little wider to allow for its passage, as well as clearance. For many calculations, the sheet metal thickness is assumed to remain constant. There are changes in thickness in certain areas, due to force involved.

Embossing-

• The sheet metal embossing operation is commonly accomplished with a combination of heat & pressure on the sheet metal, depending on what type of embossing is required.
• A sheet metal is drawn through the male & female roller dies, producing a pattern or design on the sheet metal. Depending on the roller dies used, different patterns can be produced on the sheet metal.

Mastic Sealant:

Mastic sealant helps to locally improve strength of the hood. It is generally a hard rubber part, which is introduced as a paste in between inner and outer panel of the hood, which will get hardened inside the furnace. Every mastic sealant point will have a tendency to improve the local strength in around 80 mm diameter. Considering this, the mastic points are positioned such that most of the hood region is covered.

Latch trajectory-

It is the path along which the hood rotates during opening and closing movement. The striker on the hood follows a particular path while opening or closing the hood, which is along circumference of a circle with center at the hinge axis. This path is nothing but latch trajectory. It is a very important aspect in hood design, in order to decide hinge, latch and striker installation points..

Hood Assembly Final

Important Features used in designing:

• 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 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.
• Projected Curve – It is used to project an existing curve/curves on a selected plane or surface by selecting a direction for projection.
• Mirror Geometry – As name suggests, it allows you to mirror geometries about selected plane or surface.
• Sew – It combines sheet bodies together by sewing their common edges. There shouldn’t be any gaps larger than specified tolerance.
• 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.
• 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.

Conclusion-

In this challenge I learned to design the hood inner panel,outer panel with the help of master sketch and the styling surface.& I have designed a hood that falls under the rules & regulations of the manufacturer's standards.