UNICARagil – Development of door and roof structures for a multi-use platform based vehicle concept

The network of German universities RWTH Aachen, TU Braunschweig, TU Darmstadt, Universität Stuttgart, Universität Ulm, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie and TU Munich has decided to develop completely driverless and emission-free electric vehicles as part of the UNICARagil project and to lay the foundations for improving our mobility system. UNICARagil will use a modular and scalable vehicle concept to flexibly handle applications such as logistics and passenger transport. The aim of the project is the demonstration of four cases of use: private car, taxi, delivery and shuttle. The Chair of Vehicle Technology of the TU Munich is responsible for the design of the entrance doors and roof of the various vehicle models. The UNICARagil TUM team is organized into two sub-teams: one responsible for the design of the door and roof kinematics and the other for the design of door and roof structures. The authors of this thesis, Valentina De Palma and Luciano Nicomede, formed for six months the sub-team that dealt with the structure of the doors and roof. The purpose of this thesis, which is the result of the work done in the team, is: - to design the doors of the four UNICARagil vehicles. The entrance doors and their functionality must be modular and scalable and adaptable to the resulting geometric requirements in order to be applicable to all vehicle models. For these doors, which must meet packaging, ergonomic, stylistic, kinematic, structural strength and sealing requirements, it is necessary to choose the materials and present a complete version, which also takes into account the position of the seals and kinematics, the locking system and the HMI matrices. - to design the roof for the taxi and the private car, which have an opening roof to facilitate the entry of passengers, having a lower height than the other two cars. Also in this case, it is necessary to present a complete version with seals, kinematics and locking system. In order to achieve the first objective, three solutions made with different materials and production technologies have been studied. Once the models have been realized, they have been evaluated in order to find the most suitable solution for the needs of the project. As the main objective was to reduce weight, the lightweight materials currently used in the automotive field have been adopted to produce the three different models: aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy and carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP). After having structurally verified the different solutions and optimized them, the model that best met the requirements have been chosen. As far as the second requirement concerns, it has been decided to use the same material chosen for the doors. In the last part of the thesis, the roof and doors of all vehicles have been adapted to the developments of the project and subjected to more extensive tests. Furthermore, the vehicle sealing and the optimal configuration of the latches have been studied, taking into account the presence of the kinematics and the structure of the vehicles. In addition, a roof locking mechanism has been designed and HMI matrices have been integrated into the door structures of the taxi and of the private car. The result obtained in this thesis and approved by the team can be used on the UNICARagil vehicles without further processing.