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Future Steel Vehicle Methodology Wins SAE Innovation Competition
12/21/2009 - The Accelerated Concept to Product process, marketed by Engineering Technology Associates, Inc., has won the 2nd Annual SAE International Detroit Section/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum Vehicle Innovation Competition.
The Accelerated Concept to Product (ACP) process, marketed by Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA), was the winner of the 2nd Annual SAE International Detroit Section/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum Vehicle Innovation Competition.
ACP is ETA's trade name for WorldAutoSteels's Future Steel Vehicle (FSV) Design Methodology, a multidisciplinary approach using CAE tools to generate optimized design solutions that reduce costs, improve efficiency, reduce mass, as well as improve product performance and fuel economy.
"In the FSV program, we are fully integrating and enhancing the methodology and will see its first deployment in Phase 2 with preliminary results expected in May 2010 and full program results scheduled for release early in 2011,” said Jody Shaw, Manager of Technical Marketing and Product Development, U.S. Steel, and Chairman of FSV.
“We anticipate that the mass savings that we will achieve with use of new advanced steel grades together with fully optimized structural design will result in FSV exceeding the 25% mass reduction results of the 2002 ULSAB-Advanced Vehicle Concept project,” Shaw continued. “The FSV project is aimed at further ensuring steel's role as the material of choice in automotive applications of the future."
The FSV program, which anticipates a mass reduction in the range of 35%, introduces steel solutions for next-generation electrified powertrain vehicles.
"Contrary to conventional methods where just one or a few design variables are evaluated, the new design methodology simultaneously evaluates hundreds of design variables under multiple load conditions," said Akbar Farahani, Vice President of Engineering and Consulting, ETA. "Only those concepts which meet all of the design targets and manufacturing constraints are selected. Ultimately, the final result is the optimal solution which addresses all of the load, manufacturing, material, and cost constraints."
The SAE competition selects inventions that provide innovative solutions to current automotive industry challenges. The award was presented to ETA on December 7 at the San Marino Club in Troy, Mich.
