Interesting article on 2015 materials and design

Have not seen this before, but enjoyed the read. Was from the 2014 Great Designs in Steel conference (and I thought we had some strange conferences in electrical engineering) by Shawn Morgans. Definitely shows the hood and front fenders as Aluminum, also shows the thickness in the metal for parts of the subframe.

Chris




























































http://www.autosteel.org/~/media/Files/Autosteel/Great%20Designs%20in%20Steel/GDIS%202014/Shawn%20Morgans.pdf

Awesome...thank ye.

Really detailed and interesting! Thanks!

Very cool. Looks like even the BIW got a bit heavier than the 2014, but got stiffer and larger by a greater amount. Very cool article, although some of those % improvement charts were graphically a bit misleading. Funny to see even high level presentations show that sort of stuff.

-T

Thanks for posting this presentation.

Thanks

Very cool!

Seems the tower braces do a lot - may have to get some for my base V6. Thoughts?

Thanks for posting!

EXCELLENT Presentation! :first:

Thanks so much for sharing!

Great find!! Good reading for sure and very informative.

Thanks!

This is just a conventional platform, No S or Y braces were used and there is a kick-up in the rear. Platform weight savings had to have come from the heavy use of Boron and advanced construction techniques. This Unibody is just a more advanced version of a conventional straight rail.

The Torque-Boxless design may be limited to FWD only because the strut tower in a FWD provides additional support to the firewall. A RWD's towers protrude towards the front.

Removed mass using an advanced shape (explained somewhat), used Boron/Aluminum and used Laser Welding, Hydro-Forming and German Glue.

If the V6 only gained 26lbs from 2014 to 2015, to me, it doesn't look like they even tried to beat the old weights.

Will the GT350 use the Fusion-Style S and Y Braces and eliminate the front torque boxes? They did say the GT350 was completely different from the A-Pillar up. This would include the S and Y Braces if they were present.

The difficulty to develop? Not sure...

I will have to wait and see the "changes" that occurred from the A Pillar up.

Good info... Looks like the S550 still has a looooong way to go as far as material, techniques and advancements go.

Edit: You will see they point out that the Torque Box does indeed transfer the load to the Rockers... Okay... This is basically the tout of the Y Brace (Replaced the Torque Box in the Fusion). The Y Brace eliminated the miter cuts/angles of the straight rail so... What changes did the traditional torque box undergo? I see a ton of what looks like additional support at the firewall/rail intersection. I assume that is future proofing the S550 for a big engine later on. It shouldn't need a beveled sheer plate that size for support. I could be wrong though...

It's shocking to me how thin the metal is on these bodies. I guess the days of lying down on a car's hood and staring at the sky at night are over. And who would have guessed that the structural members are hollow?

In this picture, you can see the additional support that connects the rail to the Rocker. This appears to be a bit more direct than the previous car. It is also bridging the rail to the rocker, furthermore, kinda eliminating the middle man (those miter cuts and torque box). This looks heavy duty compared to the ATS-V's Alpha. It's all teeny tiny...

JimmyTwoTimes said:

It's shocking to me how thin the metal is on these bodies. I guess the days of lying down on a car's hood and staring at the sky at night are over. And who would have guessed that the structural members are hollow?

Click to expand...

I was hit by the same feeling, 2mm thick seems pretty flimsy. I am not a materials expert by any means and I know they have made a ton of advancement in strength of materials, but man that seems thin!