Hood design-Week 2

AIM : Design Hood Outer Panel, Inner Panel and the necessary reinforcements by following the Master Section mentioned with the Design parameters.

Introduction :

• A car hood, also referred to as a bonnet in some other countries, is the hinged cover that rests over the engine of a front-engine vehicle. Its purpose is to provide access to the engine for repair and maintenance. A concealed latch is typically used to hold down the hood. On vehicles with an aftermarket hood and on racecars, hood pins may be used to hold down the car hood. Hoods sometimes also contain a hood scoop, wiper jets, power bulge, and/or hood ornament. Car hoods are typically constructed from steel and sometimes from aluminum. Aftermarket car hoods may be constructed from various other materials, including carbon fiber, fiberglass, or dry carbon.
• A typical hood assembly consist of hood outer panel, inner panel, latch and striker, hinge, hood stay. Hood stay is an apparatus for supporting the engine hood of a moto vehicle in its open position. The purpose of opening the engine hood is for inspecting engine room, replenishing cooling water and engine oil, changing parts and making repairs etc. Common types of hood stays are Support Rod and Gas Stay. Support rods are manually operated and they are cost effective and simple to design whereas gas stays require no man power but they are costly. Hood are typically made out of the same material as the rest of the bodywork. This may include steel and aluminium. Deep drawing, hemming, blanking and piercing are the common sheet metal operations that are used in manufacturing hoods in automotive industries.

DESIGN PARAMETERS :

• Outer Panel Thickness = 0.75mm
• Inner Panel Thickness = 0.75mm
• Reinforcement Thickness = 1.5mm

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

The first important criterion for designing the hood is the opening angle of the hood.

This criterion average height of the humans in the region of consideration. For example, the average height of a human being in India is 5.8 feet whereas in European countries the average height of a human being is 6 feet. Hence the opening angle of the hood greatly depends on the height of the human which can be controlled by the support rod or gas stay.The opening angle is considered important criteria because when the opening angle is less there is a chance of head injury to the human.

HOOD :-

OUTER PANEL

1.2.

FIG 1.OUTER HOOD FIG 2.RELIEF AT THE EDGE FOR OUTER HOOD FROM INSIDE

Outer panels are the aesthetic elements of a car. It is the styling team who provides the skin for the outer panel. The shape, position and size of the hood should satisfy the safety norms. So while designing the hood we should give more importance to pedestrian safety. The outer panel is attached to the inner panel by hemming. So, it is necessary to provide required hemming flange and reliefs for the hemming operation.

INNER PANEL :

Inner panel is the part that gives strength and rigidity to the outer panel. The master section represents the initial emboss shape and size. Then we provide the emboss for the latch and hinge elements after fixing the location.

REINFORCEMENT :

1.

FIG 1.STRIKER

2.

FIG 2.HINGE

• Latch & striker is used for locking the hood with the car. it's usually placed on the space provided on the inner panel.
• Hinges are used to connect the hood & cowl panel of an automobile. it enable the opening & closing operation of the hood. the hinge should be made strong enough to to handle the weight of the hood and also to handle the force action on it during the collision.

Position of the hinge and Striker.

Latch trajectory is given by the circle drawn from the hinge axis point. Hinge axis point is the centre point of the hinge axis. First, we can fix either the latch or the hinge. If we have fixed the hinge position then we should plot the Trajectory circle for the latch. For proper mating condition the striker axis through the tip of the striker should be tangential to the latch trajectory.

EMBOSS :

Throughout the inner panel we provide different embosses. We can increase the stiffness of the inner panel through these embosses. The shape and size of the embosses also determines the direction of the force distribution resulted from frontal collision. The force should be always distributed away from the passengers. Here in the figure the embosses are designed in such a way that the force is directed to either sides of the car.

Mastic Data

Hood commonly possess large surface area and hemming can only be provided through its boundary. We cannot use other joining techniques like welding, riveting etc because they leave marks on the outer panel which spoil its aesthetic appearance. So, mastic sealants are used to stick the inner surfaces of outer panel and inner panel. Mastic sealants are elastic compound that behave like rubber. It is applied between the inner and outer panels at specified spots. Each spot of mastic sealants has its effect around a circular region of 80mm diameter. Thus, the mastic points are arranged in such a way that it covers the areas away from the hemming which are more vulnerable to vibrate.

ASSEMBLY PROCESS :

HEMMING :

Hemming is a forming operation in which the edges of the sheet are folded or folded over another part in order to achieve a tight fit. Normally hemming operations are used to connect parts together, to improve the appearance of a part and to reinforce part edges.

The accuracy of the hemming operation is very important since it affects the appearance of the surface and surface quality. Material deformations, which occur during the hemming process, can lead to dimensional variations and other defects in parts. Typical hemming defects are splits or wrinkles in the flange, material overlaps in the corner areas or material roll-in. This is why it is important to provide required reliefs at the corners.

It is the roll hemming process that is used for automotive sheet metals. Roll hemming is carried out incrementally with a hemming roller. An industrial robot guides the hemming roller and forms the flange. Roll hemming operation can also be divided into several pre-hemming and final hemming process steps. Roll hemming is very flexible to use and tool costs are significantly lower as compared to those of conventional die hemming. However, the cycle times are much higher since the hemming is realized using a hemming roller which follows a defined path.

IMPACT DISTRIBUTION :

• A hood design must be made in such a way that when a force is impacted in the front of the hood, all the force must be directed outwards from the vehicle. And the distribution of the force must be controlled along with the hood.

Rendered Images OF HOOD :