Intelligent Design Prediction Aided by Non-Uniform Parametric Study and Machine Learning in Feature Based Product Development

Automotive body structure design is critical to achieve lightweight and crash worthiness based on engineers’ experience. In the current design process, it frequently occurs that designers use a previous generation design to evolve the latest designs to meet certain targets. However, in this process the possibility of adapting design ideas from other models is unlikely. The uniqueness of each design and presence of non-uniform parameters further makes it difficult to compare two or more designs and extract useful feature information. There is a need for a method that will fill the missing gap in assisting designers with better design options. This paper aims to fill this gap by introducing an innovative approach to use a non-uniform parametric study with machine learning in order to make valuable suggestions to the designer. The proposed method uses data sets produced from experiment design to reduce the number of parameters, perform parameter correlation studies and run finite element analysis (FEA), for a given set of loads. The response data generated from this FEA is then used in a machine learning algorithm to make predictions on the ideal features to be used in the design. The method can be applied to any component that has a feature-based parametric design.