The impact of mass decompounding on assessing the value of vehicle lightweighting

Among consumers and manufacturers alike, there is an increasing realization about the need for fuel efficient vehicles. One effective way to accomplish this is through vehicle lightweighting, which can be achieved by material substitution, novel vehicle component design, and changes in processing. Although primary vehicle mass reduction is often associated with additional costs to the automaker, a decision to lightweight may, depending on when in the vehicle development process the decision is taken, result in additional secondary mass savings such that the value derived from lightweighting is greater than the costs. In this study, the concept of secondary mass savings, or mass decompounding, is developed using regression analysis. Moreover, the full, both primary and secondary, mass savings potential is assessed at different times in the vehicle development process. Lastly, powertrain and market trend modeling are employed to estimate the value of the compounded mass savings in terms of improved fuel economy and acceleration. This methodology is applied to a collected vehicle dataset in order to generate a model by which the value of and the subsystem-specific amount of secondary mass savings may be easily estimated during the early stages of vehicle development. In summary, this analysis may be employed to evaluate the economic competitiveness of vehicle lightweighting options at different times in the vehicle development process.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Bjelkengren, Catarina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Randolph E. Kirchain, Jr. and Richard Roth.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44384

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44384