Structure

The design and layout of the structure has its main focus on the minimisation of the vehicle mass and on the safety. The mass of the structural elements represents a comparatively high proportion of the total vehicle mass. That is why these elements are the most challenging part regarding construction. A further challenge for vehicles of this size is to guarantee structure safety.

For the Visio M. project the company IAV GmbH, the Institute of Lightweight Structures (Lehrstuhl für Leichtbau) and the Institute of Automotive Technology (Lehrstuhl für Fahrzeugtechnik) are working together on the construction of the lightweight optimized structure. The safety cage consists of a carbon fibre reinforced plastic basin and an aluminium roof rack. The support structure is completed by an aluminium tubular frame construction in the front and rear vehicle area.

One possibility to design the structure is to use multidisciplinary optimization calculations which are influenced bycrash loads, global stiffness requirements, chassis loads and manufacturing restrictions. The topology optimisation allows the determination of a suitable framework at an early stage of the development phase. Based on this framework, the dimensioning is carried out, in which the dynamic crash load casesare also considered. As an example, the sections of the crash absorption elements are optimised.