Abstract
Many automotive companies need to design vehicles using load cases and data that represent
'realistic customer targets'. During 1999 Iveco worked with nCode in a Technology Transfer Project to develop an understanding of their Australian Target Usage Pattern. This was successful, but once a target usage is known there still remains the necessity to convert this to real data to be used by the Design & Development functions.
This paper illustrates how the target mixture of road surfaces and available test tracks were mapped to produce accelerated track based equivalents, and appropriate test rig drive signals.
The initial road load data for such an exercise is extremely large; all road surface types; and every test track. Factor this by the number of vehicle load conditions (GVW, half & kerb), 28 plus measurements, 500 samples per sec etc. It can be seen that the quantity of data to be handled requires careful planning & management.
State of the art Anomaly Checking and automatic verification techniques were used, as was careful planning within a series of automated procedures allowed the data to be verified and analysed mostly overnight.
Pre-planning using a structured Data management System also ensured that any data was never duplicated, ambiguous or lost. It has been noted that most errors arise due to lack of knowledge of the history of the data rather than problems with the data itself.
These automated procedures also provided initial load case conditions for CAE processes, with the added advantage that they are known to be equivalent to a realistic customer usage target.
Subsequently, the track mixture data was also reduced, using fatigue-editing methods, to provide full multi-axial rig drive signals.
This was achieved in a 4-day period, including training and essential confirmation exercises.