Design Process of Durable and Lightweight Rally Car Frame from Ultra-High Strength Stainless Steel
To get all outstanding mechanical properties from ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) transformed into a lightweight and durable product, a comprehensive design process must be performed. The general DFMA method has been extended to get good design solutions with limited designer resources and within a relative short time period. Key steps of the extended DFMA design process are innovative brainstorming, the agile utilization of the optimization software, the heavy use of finite element analysis and fast design iteration. In this paper, the modified DFMA design method is described step by step. This method has been successfully used in the design process of the small lightweight rally car frame. The design process of the rally car is introduced as a case example of implementation of the extended DFMA.