Although the concept modeling method has already been proposed in the literature, there is still very limited knowledge about the validation and the application of this method for vehicle body design. This paper substantially increases this limited knowledge by developing a concept model for predicting and optimizing the structural dynamics of a vehicle body-in-white and validating this concept model against a detailed finite element model. The geometry and parameters of the concept model are extracted from its detailed finite element model. The major members and panels of the detailed finite element model are replaced by their equivalent beam and shell elements models. The joints of the concept model are represented by stiffness and mass matrices extracted from the detailed finite element model using the Guyan Reduction Method. The developed concept model is validated by comparing its structural dynamics, including the resonant frequencies and the vibration mode shapes, with the original detailed finite element model and the experimental results. The simplicity and small size of the concept model enable it to easily enhance the structural dynamics of the body-in-white by optimizing the cross-sections of the load-carrying members of the structure. The optimization in this case increased the resonant frequencies of the body-in-white while reducing the total mass by about 6 kg. The results prove that the concept modeling method can significantly enhance the body-in-white structural dynamics by reducing the complexity of the model and allowing the focus for the optimization to be on the main members of the structure at the development stage when the final design parameters are not well known and have not been fixed.

中文翻译：

---

概念建模方法：一种优化车身结构动力学的方法

尽管文献中已经提出了概念建模方法，但关于该方法在车身设计中的验证和应用的知识仍然非常有限。本文通过开发用于预测和优化白车身结构动力学的概念模型，并根据详细的有限元模型验证该概念模型，大大增加了这一有限的知识。概念模型的几何形状和参数是从其详细的有限元模型中提取的。详细有限元模型的主要构件和面板由等效的梁和壳单元模型代替。概念模型的关节由刚度和质量矩阵表示，这些矩阵是使用 Guyan Reduction Method 从详细有限元模型中提取的。开发的概念模型通过将其结构动力学（包括共振频率和振动模式形状）与原始详细有限元模型和实验结果进行比较来验证。概念模型的简单性和小尺寸使其能够通过优化结构的承载构件的横截面来轻松增强白车身的结构动力学。这种情况下的优化增加了白车身的共振频率，同时将总质量减少了大约 6 公斤。