Derivation, analysis and comparison of geometric requirements for various vehicle drivetrains using dimensional chains

Following the development of new drivetrain concepts (e.g. BEV and FCEV) the comparison of drivetrains becomes increasingly important during the vehicle architecture design. Thereby, the geometrical requirements of the drivetrain architectures, respectively the minimal required distances between components, maximal component sizes as well as cross-vehicle dimensions, are often unknown at the beginning of the development. This is predominantly caused by the multitude of requirements and the high variance of components. Thus, as a starting point of a new development, experts are required to manually determine and compare the geometric requirements from existing vehicles. To increase the efficiency, a methodology is developed which derives, analyses and compares the minimal required distances, the maximal component sizes as well as the cross-vehicle dimensions of drivetrain architectures, by using dimensional chains of series vehicles. Thereby, the most relevant load paths and vehicle configurations are identified, hence reducing the complexity. Using the new methodology, it is possible to derive geometric requirements and to compare drivetrain architectures in an efficient way.     «

Following the development of new drivetrain concepts (e.g. BEV and FCEV) the comparison of drivetrains becomes increasingly important during the vehicle architecture design. Thereby, the geometrical requirements of the drivetrain architectures, respectively the minimal required distances between components, maximal component sizes as well as cross-vehicle dimensions, are often unknown at the beginning of the development. This is predominantly caused by the multitude of requirements and the high...     »