Customized Solutions to Reduce Chassis Mass by 25% for Tallent Automotive

• Automotive
• Life Sciences

• Product Research & Development

• Manufacturing Process Simulation
• Structural Health Monitoring

• System Integration

Tallent Automotive Ltd, a leading designer, developer, and manufacturer of innovative chassis structural and suspension systems, faced a significant challenge. The company supplies to major automobile manufacturers like BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Nissan, Porsche, Renault, Saab, and Volkswagen. With the growing demand for lightweight, fuel-efficient vehicles, Tallent Automotive needed a more automated method to produce minimum mass sheet metal chassis components. The new method had to consider performance targets and manufacturing constraints. The traditional design process of CAD followed by CAE verification was not efficient enough to meet these demands.

Tallent Automotive Ltd is a world-class designer, developer, and manufacturer of innovative chassis structural and suspension systems. The company has a global reputation for its high-quality products and supplies to some of the biggest names in the automobile industry, including BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Nissan, Porsche, Renault, Saab, and Volkswagen. As the automotive industry evolves, Tallent Automotive is constantly seeking ways to innovate and improve its products to meet the growing demands for lightweight, fuel-efficient vehicles.

To overcome this challenge, Tallent Automotive collaborated with Altair ProductDesign’s process automation team to develop the ‘eDICT’ (evolutionary design in chassis technology) system. This system is a blend of custom design tools and a tailored interface for the optimization technology in the HyperWorks simulation suite. The eDICT system guides Tallent Automotive engineers through several stages of best practice development, tracking the efficiency of the design and highlighting the factors adding mass into the solution. The process starts by generating and analyzing the optimum material layout, known as the ‘skeleton’. eDICT then guides the user through interpretation of this idealized structural layout to manufacturable sheet metal solutions. The automated process continually tracks the efficiency of the solution and supports re-optimization to ensure the structural performance remains inside the predefined targets.

• The eDICT system developed by Tallent Automotive and Altair ProductDesign’s process automation team has revolutionized the traditional design process. Instead of following the conventional CAD design followed by CAE verification, the optimization technology recommends where material is required. This shift in the design process has not only resulted in significant mass reductions but also improved the efficiency of the design process. The system ensures that an efficient solution is produced right from the outset of the design process, reducing development time and resources.

• eDICT system has produced 25% mass reductions on chassis components compared to the current series design.
• The system has also been able to reduce development time and resources.