Use of CAE Tools Helps Visteon Develop Quality, Leading Systems

    DEARBORN, Mich., March 14 One of the technical papers
Visteon Corporation presented last week at the Society of
Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2001 World Congress, held at Cobo Center in
Detroit, demonstrates the company's commitment and focus on producing leading
systems and solutions for its customers and the consumers they serve.
    
    The paper, titled "Optimizing the Effects of Body Attachment Stiffness on
Steering Column In-Vehicle Modes," not only explains why your steering wheel
may vibrate when you are driving on a road of loose gravel or when you drive
slowly over a speed bump in a parking lot, but also demonstrates the
application of computer aided engineering (CAE) tools that Visteon engineers
use to help identify various techniques to improve overall noise, vibration
and harshness (NVH) of the vehicle.

    "Historically, suppliers use CAE tools to evaluate their designs against
in-vehicle performance criteria," said Kumar Kulkarni, a technical specialist
in Visteon's Interior/Exterior Systems, who presented his research at the
conference.  "While in-vehicle simulations are traditionally too expensive for
suppliers to perform, we still want to provide our customers with quality,
leading systems.  By developing this method, we were able to accurately
represent and optimize the vehicle structure during the cockpit product
development phase."

    In studying how the steering column and instrument panel react within the
vehicle, Kulkarni and other Visteon engineers learned that sometimes
modifications must be made at locations where the structure attaches to the
vehicle in order to improve the overall NVH.

    One of the key findings of the paper was that in order to minimize the
effects of a full-body vibration, steering wheel vibrations can best be
studied in a quarter-body buck environment, or one-fourth of the vehicle's
size section.  Another finding was that not all steering column NVH concerns
can be attributed to the instrument panel, meaning that some design attention
needs to be paid to full-body issues.