The "DRIVE" Toolkit - Design, Research and Instant Vehicle Evaluation

Kurzfassung

The early design phase and initial evaluation period can be one of the most crucial steps in determining the success or failure of a particular vehicle concept. At this stage, engineers and researchers must make concise and logical decisions regarding many factors associated with the creation of the vehicle concept such as drive train design, packaging or material usage. The ability to anticipate the outcome of these choices is therefore a huge advantage which can save time, capital and instil otherwise latent ideas. The following paper presents new software in form of a toolkit capable of evaluating numerous vehicle configurations based on user input and state-of-the-art data. The toolkit includes six innovative technical sizing tools and introduces a new level of accessibility to the user, providing them with instant information that quantifies and summarizes a particular choice or decision. In doing so, “DRIVE” significantly reduces the complexity involved in determining the best solution for a given vehicle parameter. The six tools cover a wide range of vehicle design. This includes the full vehicle and package design evaluation, suspension design, drive design and evaluation as well as material selection. In order to provide the user with reliable results, the data that is behind the tools, was carefully researched and refined to assure its accuracy and relevance. Due to the intelligent implementation of the software and the easy-to-use interface it can be applied for all road vehicles and it is very user friendly. To outline the technical possibilities and the main advantages of the “DRIVE”-toolkit it is applied exemplarily during the development of the rear axle of the Next Generation Car (NGC) vehicle in form of a case study. Thus is made clear that this new software tool can radically improve the efficiency and rate of success of the vehicle design phase, hence allowing researchers and engineers to create better and more competitive concepts right from the start.