Performance Automotive

Archive for April, 2009

 

New product development and innovation is much more difficult and time consuming than most other business activities. Automotive rapid prototyping greatly enhances learning speed and reduces the risk of new automotive parts development.

Historically, the automotive industry has been using rapid prototyping as an important tool in the automotive parts design process. The extremely fast-paced automotive design cycles require an extremely fast prototyping system which can produce car parts fast and inexpensively.

The main objective of automotive prototyping is to learn quickly: how a new automotive product behaves in its natural working environment, before transferring the prototype to the production line. Many times, mistakes are learned only after a new automotive part is launched. This is the main explanation for poor automotive parts design, from product mismatch, poor engineering and function or finish, and overpriced production. In order to accelerate the learning curve, before these costly automotive prototyping mistakes are made, one must accelerate and facilitate feedback loops from tests in the lab and market trials.

Automotive Manufacturing Technologies

Working with an assortment of rapid prototyping equipment, automotive prototyping engineers utilize the most advanced 3D printers, in their quest for perfect form, function and utility. Working in advanced manufacturing centers, the automotive engineers use the technology to verify what they are doing, and, equally important, to save tremendous amounts of time, and money.

Automotive Rapid Prototyping Compresses Development Time

The advantages of using 3D rapid prototyping model creation versus viewing a cad/cam model on a computer screen are palpable. Automotive parts engineers get together discuss the pros and cons of a rapidly produced automotive parts model and discuss the pros and cons of the design, as they pass it around, twisting and viewing the prototype, and decide if that is what they had in mind. This way, problems get solved up front, before going to the assembly line! Once determined that the automotive prototype design is a go, the model can then be sent to a die maker.

Automotive Prototyping and the Die Maker Process

The die maker cannot use model to make the die, but because they have it in their hand and can look at it and feel it, they can determine where the parting lines will be and exactly how much steel they will need to produce it. The timing of the die process is greatly compressed.

Examples of Automotive Rapid Prototype Parts

· Car Engine parts

· Engine castings and parts

· Auto Body Components

· Auto Mechanical parts

· Car Dashboards

· Car Handles and Knobs

· Car Trim parts

 

Fail first Paradox in Automotive Rapid Prototyping

The automotive rapid prototyping paradox is to fail earlier rather than later. By failing earlier, the design engineers surprisingly succeed in accelerating the project; this greatly reduces development cost risk. By considering all automotive prototype failures as learning experiments, the engineer has much less stress, knowing that they are practicing the old adage, that success comes from ninety-nine percent failure and introspection.

Mazda Motor Corporation, maker of Mazda sway bar link, will be participating in the public road trials that will begin in fall 2007 in Hiroshima to help validate a new Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and to advocate further road safety.

With the use of modern innovative telecommunications, Intelligent Transport Systems create an information network linking people, roads and vehicles. This modern traffic system is built to work on solutions for transport problems like road accidents, congestion and damage to the environment.

To come about with an in-car navigation system that supports the Intelligent Transport Systems is Mazda’s role in the validation of these trials. The car maker will also supply many test vehicles from which data will be collected and analyzed. Aside from these, Mazda is developing a safe driving support system that will be matched with the ITS infrastructure. —It is an arrangement of cameras and sensors placed along roads which will transmit information to drivers.

As part of a consortium of the local government, academe and industry in the Hiroshima, Mazda will take part in the public road tests.

The consortium was formed during the 2006 Hiroshima Conference on ITS Validation on Public Roads wherein the Chair was Prof. Akimasa Fujiwara of Hiroshima University Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC). The conference held discussion on trials of the latest ITS technologies in the 2007-2008 periods and covered activities to encourage the expansion of ITS systems all through out Japan.

The Hiroshima has many road environments that are perfect for any verification trials such as the many number of bridges over the many rivers in the Hiroshima area include arched bridges with dangerous blind summits. Aside from this, there are also roads that hold both trams and motor vehicles that have complex traffic dynamics. Low lands and mountain regions that are closely situated together can create surprising variations in weather and road surface conditions.

There are 6 equipments/systems to be tested. These are used to identify the limit of road mobbing, to warn over speeding, to avoid rear-end collisions at traffic signals, to support in preventing head-on collision, to support in preventing a right-turn collision (to identify approaching wagons, oncoming traffic and pedestrians crossing the street), and fro in-transit information.

Those systems to be tested compares information from the ITS infrastructure and from vehicles, the vehicle condition and the driver operation, to monitor flows of traffic in the locality as well as individual driver responses. This information is then used to detect possible dangerous situations and to decide whether a warning or an alarm should be triggered or not. Indeed, this technology is a huge step towards functionality as compared to previous ITS systems which only provided information to drivers.

Mazda aims to utilize the trials to establish ITS technologies that can be used. The car maker also aims to introduce the technologies in the near future to minimize the number of traffic accidents and to lessen the negative effect of transportation on the environment.

About Mazda Motor Corporation

A Japanese automotive manufacturer that is based in Hiroshima, Japan, Mazda Motor Corporation is a well known producer of different types of vehicles and their parts. It began supplying tools in 1929 and soon branched out into production of trucks for commercial purposes.

The manufacturer’s name is derived from the transcendental God of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda. It is also believed that Mazda coincides with the anglicized pronunciation of Zoroastrianism founder’s name, Jujiro Matsuda, and opted to rename it in honor of both his family and the believers of Zoroastrianism. In the Avestan language, Mazda means “wisdom”. Nonetheless, because the company is from Japan, the name has always been pronounced and spelled as “Matsuda”. This leads the public to believe that “Mazda” is just an anglicized version of the founder.

The company is expected to produce 1.25 million vehicles annually as of 2006. Among Japan, Europe, North America, and Latin America, its sales will be evenly divided.

Mazda’s 33.4% of controlling interest is controlled by the Ford Motor Company.

Suzuki has long been an automotive enigma. For a company that has been rolling out beautifully crafted superbikes for many years their curious offerings on the car market have bemused many a reviewer not to mention the car buying public.

Other brands such as Kia and Hyundai had upped the ante with their greatly improved cars and so it became apparent to Suzuki that they would have to do likewise or face the prospect of getting left behind in the automotive race.

It was only a few years ago that the old Suzuki Swift could be found on British roads, usually being driven at about 20mph on the motorway, they were only really popular with cash strapped pensioners who used them pretty much as motorised shopping trolleys.

Then we come to the Suzuki Vitara which became the ultimate accessory for the 90′s hairdresser and was generally found in white, in fact I think you could only get them in white. Often seen with ridiculously over-sized wheels and a distinctly unfunny spare wheel cover on the back which depicted two animals mating, oh dear.

Things weren’t much better with Suzuki’s foray into light commercial vehicles with the Suzuki carry (also known as the Bedford or Vauxhall Rascal). What it could actually carry I’m unsure of, but it looked as if it would struggle with much more than the driver on board.

All this was to change dramatically however when in 2005 Suzuki hit the ground running with the launch of the all-new Swift. The Swift had a big press launch in the UK and appeared in TV commercials featuring none other than Cristiano Ronaldo which saw him demonstrating some of his ball skills to some adoring young fans before disappearing in his little Swift.

The Swift is essentially a poor man’s Mini but still manages to deliver nippy performance especially the Sport version and is well built and of course costs a lot less than its counterparts. The Swift comes with a number of petrol engines plus a diesel engine sourced from Fiat which delivers good fuel economy.

The Suzuki Splash was developed with GM who also manufacture the car as the Vauxhall Agila. The Splash replaced the Wagon R which was an ill advised name for the British market but as with the Swift the Splash is another good example of a small city car which people are now turning to in their droves. I don’t know if this is luck or a very shrewd move by Suzuki to capture this growing market.

Suzuki still offers a 4×4 range which consists of the Jimny which is a cheeky little off-road vehicle which has been around since the 1970′s. The Jimny has been improved and restyled slightly but is still really an imitation Jeep. It comes with rigid front and rear axles and switchable four wheel drive as well as a dual ratio transfer gearbox.

Curiously the Jimny is only available with a petrol engine in the UK which does not offer amazing fuel economy. They are renowned for their reliability and despite its small size the Jimny performs respectably well off-road and is unrivalled in the small 4×4 market.

The Grand Vitara has been brought up to date and now looks like a far more sensible vehicle than the Vitara of old with the five door version being the most desirable. Finally we have the SX4 which is a small urban SUV with the option of four wheel drive should you need it around town. Another car closely developed with Fiat but although it is built in Europe the steady hand of Japanese build quality still remains firmly placed on its little shoulder.

So there you have it, Suzuki has brought itself to the fore as a supplier of small practical cars that are well placed to succeed in an ever- changing market.