Abstract
The automotive industry faces many competitive challenges including weight and cost reduction to meet need for higher fuel economy. Tailored blanks offer the opportunity to decrease door weight, reduce manufacturing costs, and improve door stiffness. Optimization technology is applied to the inner panel of a door which is made by tailored blanks. The design of tailored blanks door starts from an existing door. At first, the hinge reinforcement and inner reinforcement are removed to use tailored blanks technology. The number of parts and the welding lines are determined from intuitions and the structural analysis results of the existing door. Size optimization is carried out to find thickness while the stiffness constraints are satisfied. The door hinge system is optimized using design of experiment approach. A commercial optimization software MSC/NASTRAN is utilized for the structural analysis and the optimization processes.