Development of a load-bearing body section of a bus

Conventional methods for light-weight design in mechanical engineering come to a limit and new approaches have to be investigated to achieve higher weight savings in components and products. In this thesis two load-carrying body sections of a bus are being developed with a biomimicry lightweight approach in cooperation with two industrial partners. Premium AEROTEC, as one of the industrial part- ners, determined the production technologies and material. The production meth- ods are an automated fibre placement machine and resin transfer molding with the determined material carbon fibre reinforced plastic. The given manufacturing pro- cesses and material delimit the design structure. To solve this problem the ELiSE process from imare GmbH is being used. It starts with an analysis of the Neoplan Cityliner C which was provided by the second industrial partner MAN Truck & Bus AG as a reference model. Then paragons like diatoms, radiolara, origami and others are searched for to create design concepts for a load-carrying bus structure. Two concepts, which shall replace the bus section where the front roll-over bar is located, are chosen for a topology optimization and a parametric evolutionary al- gorithm with the finite element method. Two modelled body sections are present- ed, one ending up having a higher structural weight than the reference model and one having a weight saving potential up to 50%. Ideas for improvements and future development are discussed at the end.