The Optimization Design of Engine Cradle using Hydroforming

하이드로포밍을 이용한 엔진크래들 최적설계

An engine cradle is a quite important structural assembly for supporting the engine, suspension and steering parts of vehicle and absorbing the vibrations during the drive and the shock in the car crash. Recently, the engine cradle having structural stiffness enough to support the surrounding parts and absorbing the shock of collision has been widely used. The hydroforming technology may cause many advantages to automotive applications in terms of better structural integrity of parts, reduction of production cost, weight reduction, material saving, reduction in the number of joining processes and improvement of reliability. We focus on increasing the durability and the dynamic performance of engine cradle. For realizing this objective, several optimization design techniques such as shape, size, and topology optimization are performed. This optimization scheme based on the sensitivity can provide distinguished performance improvement in using hydroforming.