Fundamentals of

Automobile Body
Structure Design
By Donald E. Malen

i International
Warrendale, Pennsylvania
USA
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Automobile Body 1
1.1 Description of the Automobile Body Types 3
1.2 Body Nomenclature 5
1.3 Body Mass Benchmarking 10
1.4 The Body Structure as a System 11
1.5 Note on Design Philosophy 12

Chapter 2 - Body Structural Requirements 13

2.1 Categories of Structural Requirements 14
2.2 The Locate and Retain Function 18
2.3 Locate and Retain for Front Suspension Attachment Structure 21
2.4 Flow Down of Requirements from Vehicle-Level Functions 31

Chapter 3 - Automotive Body Structural Elements 37

3.1 Overview of Classical Beam Behavior 38
3.2 Design of Automotive Beam Sections 43
3.3 Torsion of Thin-Wall Members 52
3.4 Thin-Wall Beam Section Design in Automobiles 72
3.5 Buckling of Thin-Walled Members 79
3.6 Automobile Body Panels: Plates and Membranes 102
3.7 Summary: Automotive Structural Elements 118

Chapter 4 -Design for Body Bending 121

4.1 Body Bending Strength Requirement 122
4.2 Body Bending Stiffness Requirement 126
4.3 Internal Loads During Global Bending: Load Path Analysis 131
4.4 Analysis of Body Bending Stiffness 138
4.5 Principles of Good Joint Design 150

Chapter 5 - Design for Body Torsion 163

5.1 Body Torsion Strength Requirement 164
5.2 Body Torsion Stiffness Requirement 165
5.3 Internal Loads During Global Torsion: Load Path Analysis 169
5.4 Analysis of Body Torsional Stiffness 181
5.5 Torsional Stiffness of Convertibles and Framed Vehicles 196

Chapter 6 -Design for Crashworthiness 215

6.1 Standardized Safety Test Conditions and Requirements 216

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Table of Contents cont.

6.2 Front Barrier 217

6.3 Side Impact 242
6.4 Note on Rear Impact 252
6.5 Note on Roof Crush 254

Chapter 7 - Design for Vibration 257

7.1 First-Order Vibration Modeling 258
7.2 Source-Path-Receiver Model of Vibration Systems 262
7.3 Frequency Response of a Single-Degree-of-Freedom System 266
7.4 SDOF Models of Vehicle Vibration Systems 272
7.5 Strategies for Design for Vibration 287
7.6 Body Structure Vibration Testing 289
7.7 Modeling the Body Structure Resonant Behavior 290
7.8 Vibration at Frequencies Above the Primary Structure Modes 296
7.9 Note on Use of Rotating Phasors to Solve Damped
Vibration Problems 312
7.10 Note on Mechanical Impedance Technique 314

Chapter 8 - Design for Vehicle and Styling Integration 319

8.1 Designing the Best Body Structure 320
8.2 Vehicle Layout 320
8.3 Exterior Body Surface 332
8.4 Constraints on Body Structure from Vehicle Layout and
Exterior Surface 337
8.5 Body Structure Topology 340
8.6 Load Path Design at Suspension Attachments : 345
8.7 Summary 354

Chapter 9 - Material Selection and Mass Estimation in

Preliminary Design 357
9.1 Materials for the Body-in-White 358
9.2 Preliminary Mass Analysis 373

Appendices 387
A. Exercises 387
B. Nomenclature 437
C. English & Metric Units & Typical Values for Key Parameters 441

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