APP01021 – How to use Design Advisor

Automotive Design Advisor

About this simulation

Design Advisor allows vehicle design decision makers to quickly and accurately examine material selection tradeoffs in terms of mass, cost and greenhouse gas emissions savings. It provides an easy-to-use simulation that allows users to enter vehicle design scenarios for quick evaluation.

These material selection decisions are often made very early in the vehicle design cycle. Design Advisor is configured to operate in that context, the only required inputs being the information which would be available during the vehicle planning stage. A sensitivity analysis is included to allow varying the input values to evaluate the robustness of the estimates.

Learning modules

The learning in Design Advisor includes:

• Setup of the nominal base case vehicle,
• Change component characteristics on the 2nd vehicle to be compared,
• Choose the driving cycle,
• Evaluate the results for changes in mass, fuel consumption, CO2 equivalent emissions, and cost, and
• Do a sensitivity analysis.

Outcomes

Learners using Design Advisor will gain an understanding of how vehicle design choices can affect the mass, cost, and climate change emissions through the life cycle of the vehicle.

Instructor

Dr Don Malen is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Michigan where he teaches graduate level courses in Automobile Body Structure and Product Design. Prior to this, he was an engineer with General Motors Corporation for 35 years. His background at GM was in automotive body structure design and analysis, and systems engineering. While at GM, he worked on many new vehicle programs and has brought this experience to his teaching and writing. Dr. Malen consults and conducts international seminars on Body Engineering, Innovation, Lead Time Reduction, and Decision Making During Preliminary Design. He holds several patents related to automobile body structure and vibration. His education includes a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from the University of Michigan, an MS from Massachussetts Institute of Technology, and a BSME from General Motors Institute (Kettering University).

Provider

Design Advisor was developed by Dr Malen for WorldAutoSteel, the automotive programme of World Steel Association. steeluniversity programmed and hosts the online simulation.