Multidisciplinary optimisation of a car component under NVH and weight constraints using RSM

One of the important challenges in the auto industry is to reduce the mass of the vehicle while meeting structural performance requirements for crashworthiness, noise, vibration and harshness, etc. In this paper, a multidisciplinary optimisation of a car back-bonnet is investigated by using the response surface method. A car body is fully surface modelled in CATIA and meshed in software. Then, modal analysis of the finite element model is performed by NASTRAN software to find natural frequencies. A frequency map of that component is extracted and compared with a reference map to detect defects. Design of experiments methodology is used for a screening of the design space and for the generation of approximation models using response surface techniques. Therefore, to optimise the model, improvement of the noise, vibration and harshness behaviour and minimisation of the weight are imposed.