Completed Projects

Advanced Lightweight Body Structure

Multimatic participated in several Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) programs. These programs are U.S. Government initiatives, in conjunction with major OEMs, to develop technologies that will enable high efficiency passenger vehicles. The main scope and objectives of the programs are:

• Achieve over 80 mpg fuel economy
• Vehicle based on current mid-size sedans
• Comparable functional and structural performance to selected baseline vehicle
• Baseline vehicle styling and packaging to be maintained
• Achieve highest level of weight save
• Incorporate "stretch technologies" that can be developed for future mass-production

Aluminum and carbon fibre composite structures	Finite element analysis - torsional stiffness
Completed composite body structure	Completed composite body structure show from underneath
Dynamic crash simulation	Barrier crash test

Multimatic's Engineering Services Group was contracted by the PNGV consortium (Ford/GM/Chrysler) to develop the lightest possible body structure (i.e. body-in-white) for a vehicle based on the Chrysler JA (Cirrus/Stratus) platform. The design had to maintain vehicle styling and packaging and meet or exceed the stiffness performance (static and dynamic bending and torsion) of the existing steel structure as well as provide equivalent frontal impact energy management.

• Aluminum sheet
• Aluminum and aramid honeycomb core
• Carbon/epoxy, aramid/epoxy and aluminum skins
• Multi-ply carbon/epoxy laminate sheet
• Titanium and phenolic inserts

Extensive finite element analyses were performed to establish the performance of the baseline steel vehicle and the proposed composite structure. The final design was predicted to return superior performance for all criteria at a weight save of 70.2%.

The project culminated in the production of a fully tooled, one-off prototype body in white. This physical demonstrator returned an actual weight save of 68.5% and fully proved the viability of the construction techniques.