![]() ![]() Indeed, their partnership and involvement is unparalleled.” We had to look at a systems approach, and Honda helped us to understand all of the door system elements down to the component level. Design, manufacturing and integration of composite components must be combined with a number of customer-driven ‘soft’ requirements to create an acceptable system design, and this would not have been possible without Honda support.” This sentiment is shared by the other team members, adds Pilla: “Simple material substitution was not a solution. Yarlagadda, the project’s co-principal investigator, points out, “Honda has been an integral part of our effort and has provided an exceptional level of collaboration and commitment to our program, including HPC computing support and access to Honda engineers across the spectrum. Bazle Haque and Shridhar Yarlagadda of the University of Delaware CCM, experts in multi-material composites. Gang Li, a professor of engineering mechanics at Clemson, and Drs. Supporting Pilla on the project are several undergraduate and graduate students, Dr. This meant that for a typical Acura MDX door weighing 31.8 kg, a 42.5% weight reduction would bring the overall target weight to 18.3 kg, which (at $5/lb of saved weight) meant the composite door could only add $150 to the cost of the door. ![]() Perhaps most important, the DOE mandated a maximum allowable cost per pound of saved weight (over the baseline door) of $5. Honda also added its own constraints to the project, he adds: “The door design to be developed by the team must use the same sealing geometry, have all of the same functional equipment as the baseline door, provide a Class A finish indistinguishable from the baseline and meet Honda durability and aging requirements.” The team has brought an additional goal that the door be 100% recyclable. Honda came on board as the research project’s OEM advisor because the project aligned with “our vision of ultimately creating an emission-free society,” says Skye Malcolm, principal engineer, Advanced Planning & Verification Vehicle Development Foundations at Honda R&D Americas. And, regardless of how the lightweight door was designed, it had to use commercially available material systems and scale to production volumes of at least 20,000 vehicles per year. The request for proposal asked for design and development of a car door that offered a 42.5% weight reduction over a standard OEM door, while maintaining similar crash performance, durability and use/misuse performance, and similar noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) performance. The four-year project, which began in 2016, came about as a DOE solicitation, part of the Obama administration’s series of Grand Challenges to further science and engineering on many topics, including meeting automotive emission standards. We believe there’s potential for efficiency gains in the area of load-bearing, structural closure systems at a reasonable price point.” Collaboration, teaming are key Srikanth Pilla, who is the Jenkins Endowed Professor of Automotive Engineering and Dean's faculty fellow at Clemson, is the question of whether composites can enable ultra-lightweight closure systems - doors, hoods, trunk lids - to complement concurrent advances in powertrain technology and better aerodynamics: “Within the technology portfolio for lightweighting, much of the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has been implemented already - for example, engine downsizing. The project’s focus, says principal investigator Dr. ![]()
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