A Feasibility Study on Innovative Reinforced Modular Frames for Automotive Applications

Vehicle frames can be considered the main stiffening component being, at the same time, functional hubs for all the other components assembly. Frames’ main goal is to absorb the static and dynamic loads acting on the vehicle, ensuring passengers’ safety. In this paper a feasibility study on an innovative modular frame concept is presented. An attempt has been made to design a modular frame by using customized additive manufacturable steel joints. Actually, standard frame structures are manufactured by welding separated tubes, making access to some internal areas of the vehicle very difficult where not impossible. Consequently, some maintenance operations become also challenging. The modular configuration solves these maintenance problems enabling, at the same time, to start thinking about multi-purposes vehicle configurations, which can be switched by simply changing the modules connected to a central cell. Reinforced panels have been, also, integrated into the modular frame, which contribute to torsional stiffness with an overall mass reduction. The concept of a modular frame with collaborating reinforced panels, has been preliminary demonstrated by means of numerical simulations within the ABAQUS FEM environment. Certification torsional loads have been applied to the modular reinforced frame and the obtained numerical results contributed to prove the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed design.