Structural Door Module

Progressive side impact energy absorption structure. Designed to reduce occupant trauma during dynamic side impact

• Triangulated tubular structure carries majority of door loadings including: sag, side impact and longitudinal crush
• Can carry all major door hardware assembled and tested in an off-line build
• Extremely simple to assemble into door shell

Multimatic's proprietary design utilizes the innovative, progressive side impact protection structure, as the basis of an extremely weight efficient structural module. If the dual beam, side impact protection structure is oriented so as to tie the lower hinge directly to a compact latch reinforcement, it then provides a direct load path to the surrounding body structure. The introduction of a third tube, tying the upper hinge to the latch reinforcement, completes a high stiffness triangulated "barn gate" structure. This third tube, if properly sized, then provides required inner belt strength.

This triangular arrangement of tubes, if correctly designed, can eliminate the following conventional door structure:

• Intrusion beam
• Inner belt reinforcement
• Hinge reinforcement
• Latch reinforcement
• Significant portion of inner panel

The natural evolution of this configuration is to then attach all major door hardware to the tubes to create a true module. This facilitates an off-line build of the major door components which can be simply inserted into the "door can" with very little labour.

Multimatic has developed a proof of concept design and has prototyped a number of these systems for verification and demonstration. A combination of analytical studies and verification testing has proven that the bolt-in module can carry the majority of door loadings, including side and front impact, in isolation. This system is particularly well suited to hardtop (ie: no window frame) door configurations.