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2018-01-0120 Published 03 Apr 2018
A Tailor Welded Blanks Design of Automotive
Front Rails by ESL Optimization for Crash Safety
and Lightweighting
Jianyong Liang, Jonathan Powers, and Scott Stevens AK Steel Corporation
Citation: Liang, J., Powers, J., and Stevens, S., “A Tailor Welded Blanks Design of Automotive Front Rails by ESL Optimization for Crash
Safety and Lightweighting,” SAE Technical Paper 2018-01-0120, 2018, doi:10.4271/2018-01-0120.
Abstract
U
tilizing the tailor welded blanks (TWBs) design along
with the latest AHSS grades for the front rails on a sedan
was studied to reduce the weight of the vehicle and
improve the crash safety performance. To find the most efficient
material usage, the front rail parts were tailored into multiple
blanks with varying thickness. A structural thickness optimiza-
tion study of the tailored front rails was conducted for IIHS
moderate overlap frontal crash, and the tailored blank thickness
was set as design variable. The equivalent static loads (ESL)
method was adopted for the thickness optimization, which
allows many design variables to be optimized simultaneously.
The torsion and bending stiffness of the sedan body in prime
were set as design constraints, and would not be compromised.
The optimal thickness configurations of the TWB designs by
ESL optimization suggest that the weight of the frontal rails can
be reduced by more than 30% while still maintaining the crash
safety performance. These TWB designs were validated by
US-NCAP full frontal impact and show similar performance
Keywords
Structural optimization, Moderate overlap frontal crash,
Equivalent static loads (ESL) method, 3rd Gen AHSS,
Introduction
W
ith increased pressure from governments and regula-
tion agencies to improve the fuel economy and
reduce the greenhouse gas emission, reducing
vehicle weights proves to be an integral part of the solution. To
achieve the weight reduction target, advanced high strength steels
(AHSS) have been used widely in vehicles, especially on body-
in-white (BIW) and closures [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Those AHSS grades
offer high yield and tensile strength compared with traditional
steel grades. And thus the crash and safety, oil canning, dimpling
and other performance can still be reached with thinner gauges
[7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Now steel companies are launching the next
and 3rd generation AHSS grades that offer even higher yield and
tensile strength with improved formability [13, 14].
Structural optimization methods have been developed to
meet the requirements of reducing vehicle weight while meeting
© 2018 SAE International. All Rights Reserved.
with baseline. A 3rd gen AHSS, NEXMET™1000, was selected
on four parts of the front rails to replace the baseline HSLA350.
The optimal tailored frontal rail design using NEXMET™1000
grade was obtained through ESL thickness optimization and
validated by US-NCAP full frontal impact. Compared with
HSLA350, the NEXMET™1000 grade offers better crash safety
performance with more weight reduction potential.
An optimal thickness coefficient is proposed in this study
to evaluate the material efficiency of the tailored blanks and
the amount of thickness changes required for each blank to
reach the most efficient material usage. The optimal TWB
thickness configurations for HSLA350 and NEXMET™1000
grades through ESL were evaluated using this optimal thick-
ness coefficient. The critical locations on front rails for crash
safety were identified and the amount of thickness changes
needed characterized. The tailor welded blanks technology
can be implemented in the front rail design to reduce weight
and improve crash safety. This optimal thickness coefficient
can guide the automotive design for lightweighting.
Tailor welded blanks (TWBs), Optimal thickness coefficient
or improving the vehicle stiffness, NVH and crash performance
[15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]. Especially with the adoption
of multiple AHSS grades, optimization can be employed to
identify the best steel grade and gauge (thickness) for each part
to meet the requirements. Among those optimization methods,
sizing, topometry, shape and topology optimizations are the
most popular in automotive industry and have been adopted
by commercial software such as Optistruct and DesignStudio.
Yet all those optimization methods are based on static linear
load cases. When it comes to nonlinear and dynamic response
optimization, above conventional techniques used in linear
static response optimization become too time costly and some-
times unfeasible. Especially for large scale problems such as
full vehicle crash, the problems have large nonlinearity (material
plasticity, large structure deformation, etc.) and the analysis is
carried out in the time domain [24]. It is difficult to include
nonlinear dynamic response analysis in mathematical model
and obtain the response sensitivity information for optimization.
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2
A TAILOR WELDED
A TAILORBLANKS
WELDEDDESIGN
BLANKS
OF DESIGN
AUTOMOTIVE
OF AUTOMOTIVE
FRONT RAILS
FRONT
BY ESL
RAILS
Response surface method (RSM) has been used to reduce
the cost for nonlinear response optimization [25, 26]. A response
surface is constructed based on limited sample points (either
from simulation or experiment) using a linear or quadratic fitting
to approximate a complicated problem. The design of experi-
ments (DOE) is generally used for sample point generation and
the least squares regression for function approximation. No
response sensitivity analysis is required for RSM method. Yet the
approximated results may not be accurate due to the high nonlin-
earity between the input variables (part thickness, materials,
shape, etc.) and the response function in vehicle crash. And the
computation becomes more costly with additional design variables.
The equivalent static loads method (ESL) has been
proposed to solve the nonlinear and dynamic response opti-
mization problems [27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32]. In the ESL method,
the equivalent static loads are calculated and applied during
optimization instead of nonlinear and dynamic loads. A linear
static optimization is conducted in given design region to get
the optimal solution instead. For nonlinear optimization with
many design variables and thus require many cases to calculate,
ESL method offers an affordable solution. It has been verified
in thickness optimization [27], shape optimization [29] and
topology optimization [30, 31, 32], and adopted in commercial
software such as VRAND DesignStudio and MSC Nastran.
Tailored blank design, including tailor welded blanks
(TWB) and tailor rolled blanks, have been used widely in auto
industries to build lighter and more fuel efficient vehicles [33,
34, 35, 36, 37]. Those technologies allow parts with varying
thickness feasible using conventional stamping tools. With the
best material gauge and grade in the right position, the material
utilization is greatly enhanced for lightweighting and crash safety
performance. In this research, the tailor welded blanks design
of front rails on a sedan was studied and the possibility to further
reduce weight and improve crash performance investigated. The
ESL method was used to run the structural optimization analysis
and find the optimal thickness configuration for the TWB
designs. A 3rd generation AHSS steel grade, NEXMET™1000,
was applied on four parts of the front rails, and ESL thickness
optimizations with multiple mass reduction targets were
conducted to find the optimal thickness configurations. A
comparison is made between the baseline HSLA350 grade and
the NEXMET™1000 grade on their performance in improving
the frontal crash safety and reducing the vehicle weight.
An optimal thickness coefficient is proposed to evaluate
the material efficiency of the TWB blanks for a certain mass
saving target and the percentage of thickness change required
to reach the most efficient material usage for a certain TWB
blank. The value for each tailored blank on the front rails was
calculated using the ESL thickness optimization results and
plotted. This optimal thickness coefficient can be used as a
reference in vehicle part design for light weighting.
ESL Method for Crash
Safety Optimization
In the ESL method, the equivalent static loads are calculated,
which should give the same displacement fields as crash loads
at a certain time step. The equivalent static loads are calculated
OPTIMIZATION
BY ESL OPTIMIZATION 2
by multiplying the linear stiffness matrix with the displacement
field at certain time obtained from nonlinear analysis (crash
analysis in this research). A linear optimization will be
conducted in given design region with the equivalent static
loads. Nonlinear analysis and linear ESL optimization are
conducted sequentially in the optimization simulation until
the convergence criteria is satisfied.
Two iteration loops exist in this ESL optimization,
internal iterations and external iterations. The internal itera-
tions are linear optimization in the design domain, while the
external iterations relate the data flow between analysis
domain and design domain [32]. While for conventional opti-
mization, only internal iterations happen in the design domain.
For the ESL optimization, the process includes analysis
domain and design domain. Nonlinear crash safety analysis
is conducted in the analysis domain with the full vehicle crash
model and the displacement fields at certain times were
obtained. The governing equation can be expressed as:
M ( b,z N ( t ) ) 
z N ( t ) + C ( b,z N ( t ) ) z N ( t )
+ K ( b,z N ( t ) ) z N ( t ) = f ( t ) ( t = t 0 ,t1 ,,t l ) (1)
Where M is the mass matrix, b is the design variable
vector and zN(t) the displacement vector. C is the damping
matrix, and K is the stiffness matrix.  z N ( t ) is the acceleration
vector and z N ( t ) is the velocity vector. The constant l is the
total number of time steps for integration. f(t) is the external
load vector and t is the time. The nonlinear displacement zN(t)
at all the time steps can be obtained from Eq. (1).
With the displacement field from nonlinear analysis
domain (t = s), the ESL load is calculated as:
f eqz ( s ) = K L ( b ) * Z N ( t ) ( s = 1, 2, , l ) (2)
Where f eq ( s ) is the equivalent static load. KL(b) is the stiff-
z
ness matrix of the linear static model. ZN(t) is the displacement
field at time s = t from nonlinear analysis domain. The notation
s is used in the linear static analysis as a non-time domain
variable, and is equal to t from the nonlinear analysis domain.
The ESL load obtained from Eq. (2) is applied as an
external load in the linear static model and a conventional
structural optimization can be conducted to obtain the optimal
design variable configuration under defined constraints with
improved time efficiency. The crash model is updated then with
the new design variables from design domain and another
round of nonlinear crash analysis and linear static optimization
will be conducted following the process in Figure 1.
 FIGURE 1   ESL optimization process.
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A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION 3

The optimization process will terminate if the change of the  FIGURE 2   The 40% offset frontal crash model of a sedan
design variables b is smaller than the convergence parameter ε. car for ESL thickness optimization.
The models in the nonlinear analysis domain and the
linear design domain do not have to be the same. As can be
seen in Figure 1, the nonlinear model is a full vehicle model
while the linear model is a body in prime of the same vehicle.
DesignStudio will map the displacement results from analysis
domain to the design domain based on the part IDs and node
coordinates and return the optimized thickness or other
design parameters back to analysis domain for further
nonlinear analysis and linear optimization.

© SAE International
Model Setup for IIHS
Moderate Overlap
Frontal Crash and ESL  FIGURE 3   Parts chosen for thickness optimization.
Thickness Optimization
The vehicle frontal structure is designed to absorb crash
energy of the moving vehicles and thus reduce the intrusion
into the occupant compartment and protect the passenger
from any physical injury. The IIHS moderate overlap test is
especially severe and requires only 40% of the frontal vehicle
width to manage the crash energy and protect the driver from
injury. In this frontal 40% offset crash, the vehicle moves at
40mph and strike a deformable barrier with its 40% frontal
© SAE International

width [38]. 40% offset crash is considered more severe than

NHTSA’s NCAP due to its more localized deformation in the
vehicle frontal area. And it requires innovative design to
improve the strength and rigidity of the crush zone to meet
the regulation, for example, using AHSS steel grades, using
tailor welded blanks (TWB), and reinforcing critical areas.
Structural optimization has also been adopted to find the
optimal thickness, shape and size of those parts in crush zone.
A sedan model was used in this research, and IIHS moderate
overlap frontal crash analysis and ESL optimization were
conducted. The sedan crash model is a full vehicle model, as shown
in Figure 2. The barrier model was developed and evaluated by
LSTC. The frontal crash analysis was conducted with LS-Dyna.
The sedan Body-in-Prime model (BIP) is used for the linear
static optimization, as shown in Figure 1. Torsion and bending
rigidity are most important for vehicle stiffness performances,
and were chosen as design constraints. These frontal parts
chosen for sizing optimization are shown in Figure 3, which are
located in the crush zone and most crucial for frontal crash. To
fully utilize the material efficiency, those frontal parts were
divided into small pieces (representing the tailored blanks),
with the thickness of each blank as design variable for optimiza-
tion. This tailored blanks design can be realized by tailor welded
blanks (TWBs) or tailor rolled blanks (TRBs) technology,
depending on the optimal thickness configuration of the
tailored blanks and related the production feasibility and cost.
A total of 60 blanks on front rail parts were chosen for
thickness (sizing) optimization and 30 design variables
defined (vehicle symmetric between the left and right sides).
The torsion and bending stiffness were set as design constraints
and would not be compromised during optimization. To
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measure the frontal intrusion during crash, 8 points on the
firewall (5 points on the lower occupant compartment (LOC)
including footrest, left toepan, center toepan, right toepan and
brake pedal, and 3 points on the upper occupant compartment
(UOC) including left instrument panel, right instrument
panel, and A pillar) were picked and their intrusion reported.
During optimization, the frontal intrusions at the 5 LOC loca-
tions on firewall were set as design target to be minimized.
The program will pick the maximum intrusion among those
5 measuring points to reduce during the optimization simulation.
So the design formulation is:
Find ti (i = 1,2,…,30, the number of design variables).
To minimize the maximal intrusion at the measuring
locations on the dash panel.
Subject to:
Torsion stiffness K t ³ baseline
Bending stiffness K b ³ baseline
t il £ t i £ t iu
Mass reduction target
Where ti is the ith blank thickness for optimization, til
and tiu are the lower and upper limits of that blank. In this
study, the upper limit of part thickness is set as 1.2 times the
original thickness, and the lower limit is set as half of the
original thickness.
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4 A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION

For the TWB technology, the thickness ratio between two
neighboring blanks has significant effects on formability and
structural performance, and should be no more than 2.0 [39,
40]. In this study, the thickness ratio is considered as design
constraint in the ESL optimization and cannot be greater than
1.5 during optimization.
An optimal thickness coefficient φ for a certain TWB
blank is proposed here to evaluate the efficiency of that blank
under a mass saving target. The value of this coefficient repre-
sents the percentage of thickness change required for this
blank to reach the most efficient material usage under a certain
mass saving target. This value is obtained by linear interpola-
tion from neighboring sample points.
n
æ t -t ö
j = åwi * ç i b ÷ (3)
i =1 è tb ø
Where n is the number of sample points from chosen ESL
runs with different weight reductions achieved to take into
account. ti is the optimal thickness for a TWB blank of the ith
sample point from ESL optimization and tb is the baseline
thickness of that blank. wi is the weight factor of the ith sample
point, and the sample point closer to the target will get a higher
weight factor. The sample points cannot be too far from the
target, as crash performance is highly non-linear, and linear
interpolation may not work well. The sum of the weight factors
of a certain TWB blank should equal one.
n
åw
i =1
i = 1 (4)
maximal frontal intrusion on firewall is set as design objective
to be minimized. The optimal thickness configuration with
each mass reduction achievement was obtained. Figures 4 to
8 show the optimal thickness value (gauge) for each TWB
blank. Note that the baseline front rail thickness values are
plotted directly at 0% mass reduction, and are not optimized.
As shown, the thickness of several TWB blanks (for example
dv5, dv9, dv10, dv11, dv19, dv20 and dv29) was increased for
most mass reduction cases to improve the crash safety and
some thickness (for example dv1, dv2, dv3, dv7, dv16, dv17,
dv21, dv23 and dv24) reduced to save weight and improve the
material efficiency. Those TWB blanks get different thickness
to fully utilize the material properties, showing the necessity
of using TWB design for front rails.
The TWB blank thickness in the LS-Dyna crash model
was updated using the optimal thickness configurations from
ESL optimization, and single crash analysis was conducted
for each configuration. The corresponding maximum frontal
intrusions for each optimal thickness configuration are shown
in Figure 9. As can be seen, all the TWB designs show
improved frontal intrusion performance compared with the
baseline. The safety rating for moderate overlap frontal crash
 FIGURE 4   The optimal TWB thickness with design
variable 1-5.

The weight factor is used to take into account several ESL

thickness configurations with different mass reduction
achievements. A positive value of φ means the thickness of
this blank should increase to further improve the stiffness and
crash safety performance, while a negative value means the
thickness should be reduced to save weight. The magnitude
of this coefficient indicates the percentage of thickness change

© SAE International
required to reach the optimal material efficiency.

Thickness Optimization
of TWB Design  FIGURE 5   The optimal TWB thickness with design variable

for Front Rails 6-10.

A sedan model from NCAC was used in this research, and its
front rail parts were tailored into multiple blanks with baseline
HSLA350 grade as in Figure 3. IIHS moderate overlap frontal
crash analysis and ESL thickness optimization were conducted.
The sedan crash model is a full vehicle model, as shown in
Figure 2. The barrier model was developed by LSTC and used
in this 40% offset crash.
In the design domain for ESL method, the maximum
number of internal iterations is set as 5, which means the
linear optimization will return once the optimization itera-
© SAE International

tions reaches 5 for that analysis-design cycle or if the calcula-

tion has reached convergence.
ESL optimization for the TWB design with mass reduc-
tion target as design constraint was conducted and the
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A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION 5

 FIGURE 6   The optimal TWB thickness with design  FIGURE 9   Frontal intrusion for the TWB design of front
variable 11-20. rails using HSLA350.
© SAE International

© SAE International  FIGURE 10   Stiffness performance for the TWB design of
 FIGURE 7   The optimal TWB thickness with design
front rails using HSLA350.
variable 21-23.
© SAE International
© SAE International

can be improved from acceptable to good with a maximum

mass reduction of about 33% on front rails. Using the TWB
designs, the most critical locations on rails get higher thick-
 FIGURE 8   The optimal TWB thickness with design
ness for energy absorption while the thickness for the rest
variable 23-30.
areas remains the same or gets reduced to improve material
efficiency. The material usage together with the rail toughness
(the capability to absorb crash energy before fracture) gets
improved with less weight. Figure 10 shows the torsion and
bending stiffness of the sedan using TWB designs. The
baseline bending and torsional rigidity are plotted as 0% mass
reduction. Table 1 shows the summary of the ESL optimiza-
tion results with different mass savings. A maximum of
33.45% mass on rails can be saved with torsion rigidity reduc-
tion of 0.51% and bending stiffness reduction of 1.44%.
To further evaluate the optimal thickness configurations
with ESL optimization as in Figures 4 to 8, the optimal thick-
ness coefficient φ for all the TWB blanks with different mass
© SAE International

saving targets (10%, 20% and 30%) were calculated and plotted
in Figure 11. The thickness configurations from ESL in Table 1
were used as sample points to obtain the material efficiency for
a certain mass saving target by linear interpolation between
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6 A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION

TABLE 1  TWB design of frontal rails with different mass are always below −0.4 mm, showing their inefficiency and
reduction targets using HSLA350 grade. their thickness can be further reduced to save weight.
Maximal Maximal
Torsion intrusion intrusion
Mass
reduction
(KN-m/
rad)
Bending
(N/mm)
@ LOC
(mm)
@ UOC
(mm) Adoption of the
Baseline
5.40%
1318.51
1319.96
2386.52
2390.41
179.81
135.45
75.07
41.85
NEXMET™1000 on Front
7.83% 1319.49 2389.93 142.37 50.27 Rails
9.75% 1319.19 2388.18 143.68 51.90
11.99% 1319.17 2387.63 136.78 41.11 The AHSS grades have been used widely in automotive parts
13.91% 1318.52 2386.97 135.61 41.46 for crash safety and light-weighting. The AHSS grades have
higher yield and tensile strength, and thus more energy
16.63% 1317.61 2383.45 142.57 43.56
absorption potential than traditional steel grades [7, 8, 9].
19.74% 1318.51 2379.15 137.19 36.23
NEXMET™1000 grade is a newly launched 3rd generation

© SAE International
24.42% 1316.12 2370.74 141.93 37.08 steel grade with very high yield and tensile strength, as in
29.14% 1313.80 2361.78 147.45 43.94 Figure 12. It can be adopted in frontal parts of the vehicle to
33.45% 1311.80 2352.13 148.04 46.49 improve the crash safety and achieve further weight reduction.
38.49% 1306.69 2339.61 150.95 40.16 Four parts in the front rails have been replaced with
NEXMET™1000 grade as shown in Figure 13 (parts with
design variables 11-20 and design variables 24-30). The same
neighboring sample points. For a 10% mass saving target, the
40% offset frontal crash optimization was conducted and the
9.75% and 11.99% sample points were taken into account and
optimal thickness configuration for the TWB designs obtained.
the weight factor was calculated to be 0.888 and 0.112 respec-
ESL optimization was conducted for the TWB design
tively according to the distance of the corresponding sample
with 30 design variables assigned to different tailored blank
points to the target. For the 20% mass saving, the 19.74% and
thickness. The optimal thickness configuration with different
24.42% sample points were taken into account and the weight
factor was set as 0.944 and 0.056 respectively. For the 30% mass
 FIGURE 12   AK Steel’s NEXMET™1000 grade with higher
saving, the 29.14% and 33.45% sample points were taken into
account and the weight factor was set as 0.8 and 0.2 respectively. yield and tensile strength.
Radar chart is used to show the coefficient for each TWB
blank for each mass saving target. Each design variable is
displayed on an axis radially arranged as equi-angular spokes
around a center point. As can be seen, the values of dv9, dv10,
dv19, dv20 and dv29 are always positive, indicating their high
material efficiency and further potential in improving crash
safety of the vehicle by increasing their thickness. On the
contrary, the values for dv1, dv7, dv17, dv21, dv23 and dv24

 FIGURE 11   The optimal thickness coefficient for the

TWB blanks.
© SAE International

 FIGURE 13   TWB parts using NEXMET™1000 grade on

front rails.
© SAE International

© SAE International

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A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION 7

mass reduction targets was obtained. Figures 14 to 18 show  FIGURE 17   The optimal TWB thickness with design
the optimal thickness values (gauge) for each TWB blank at variable 21-23.
front rails. Again, the baseline front rail thickness is plotted
directly at 0% mass reduction. As can be seen, some TWB
blank thickness (for example dv5, dv9, dv10, dv11, dv20 and
dv29) was increased for most weight reduction achievements

 FIGURE 14   The optimal TWB thickness with design

variable 1-5.

© SAE International
 FIGURE 18   The optimal TWB thickness with design
© SAE International

variable 24-30.

 FIGURE 15   The optimal TWB thickness with design

variable 6-10.
© SAE International
© SAE International

from ESL optimization to improve the crash safety and some

thickness (for example dv1, dv2, dv3, dv6, dv7, dv16, dv17,
dv21, dv23, dv24, dv25 and dv27) was reduced to save weight
and improve the material efficiency. Those TWB blanks on
the same part get different thickness to fully utilize the
 FIGURE 16   The optimal TWB thickness with design material properties, showing the necessity of using TWB
variable 11-20. design for front rails.
Figure 19 shows the maximum frontal intrusion for each
mass reduction case, and the comparison with baseline
HSLA350 grade. As can be seen, the NEXMET™1000 grade
offers better crash intrusion performance with similar weight
reductions. NexMet™1000 offers more than 40% weight reduc-
tion potential for front rails. Figure 20 shows the torsion and
bending stiffness. Table 2 shows the summary of the ESL opti-
mization results with mass saving achievements. A 40.77%
mass reduction (or more) on front rails can be achieved with
torsion stiffness reduction of 1.16% and bending stiffness
reduction of 2.31%. Given that the global bending stiffness
© SAE International

already gets 2.31% decrease at 40.77% mass reduction on front

rails, and will keep decreasing with increased mass reduction
(as shown in Figure 20), no further ESL optimization
was conducted.
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8 A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION

 FIGURE 19   Frontal intrusion for the TWB design of front  FIGURE 21   The optimal thickness coefficient for the
rails using NEXMET™1000 on four parts. TWB blanks.

© SAE International

© SAE International
 FIGURE 20   Stiffness performance for the TWB design of For the optimal thickness configurations of TWB front
front rails using NEXMET™1000 on four parts. rails using NEXMET™1000 on four parts, the optimal thick-
ness coefficient φ for mass saving targets of 10%, 20%, 30%
and 40% of all the TWB blanks were interpolated based on
the thickness configurations of those sample points from ESL
optimization and plotted in Figure 21.
For 10% mass saving, the 9.75% and 14.75% sample points
were taken into account and the weight factor was set to 0.95
and 0.05 respectively. For 20% mass saving, the 19.86% and
22.50% sample points were taken into account and the weight
factor was set as 0.947 and 0.053 respectively. For 30% mass
saving, the 28.22% and 33.65% sample points were taken into
account and the weight factor was set to 0.672 and 0.328
© SAE International

respectively. For 40% mass saving, the 37.65% and 40.77%

sample points were taken into account and the weight factor
was set to 0.247 and 0.753 respectively.
As can be seen, the values of dv10, dv19, dv20 and dv29
are positive for most cases, indicating their further potential
in improving the crash safety of the vehicle. On the contrary,
TABLE 2  TWB design of front rails with different mass the values for dv1, dv2, dv8, dv16, dv17, dv21, dv22, dv23, dv24,
reduction targets using NEXMET™1000 on four parts. dv25 and dv27 are always below −0.2 mm, showing their
thickness can be further reduced to save weight.
Maximal Maximal
Torsion intrusion intrusion
Mass (KN-m/ Bending @ LOC @ UOC
reduction
Baseline
rad)
1318.51
(N/mm)
2386.52
(mm)
184.55
(mm)
89.95
TWB Design Validation
4.58% 1320.68 2392.71 123.30 41.77 by US-NCAP Frontal
9.75%
14.75%
1319.76
1318.09
2387.68
2386.03
118.26
126.19
37.37
43.94 Impact Test
19.86% 1316.93 2379.15 121.11 37.07
The NCAP frontal impact test by NHTSA is a full frontal
22.50% 1316.51 2374.28 127.55 38.74
barrier test at 35mph against a flat rigid barrier, as shown in
© SAE International

28.22% 1314.77 2363.47 139.33 44.66 Figure 22. It is necessary to use the NCAP frontal impact to
33.65% 1309.37 2351.53 135.03 40.76 validate the TWB design configurations of front rails obtained
37.65% 1308.57 2341.55 130.87 36.41 through ESL optimization. The velocity was differentiated to
40.77% 1303.17 2331.44 134.09 35.39 obtain the acceleration pulse. The vehicle acceleration pulse

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A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION 9
 FIGURE 22   The US-NCAP frontal impact model of a
sedan car.
© SAE International
© SAE International
(in -G’s) was measured at the B-pillar under rocker area on
both the driver side and passenger side of the vehicle. The
TWB designs of front rails using both HSLA350 and
NEXMET™1000 were validated by the US-NCAP frontal
crash test, to make sure the TWB designs do not compromise
the full frontal crash performance.
The acceleration pulses on the driver side during NCAP
frontal impact for the TWB designs of front rails were plotted
in Figure 23 for HSLA350 and in Figure 24 for NEXMET™1000.
For TWB design using HSLA350 grade, the peak acceleration
for the 5.4% mass reduction configuration are higher than the
baseline, increasing the probability of serious injury for the
driver. The reason is that the increased material efficiency and
toughness of front rails by TWB design (which is good to
control the intrusion for 40% offset crash) make the vehicle
too rigid for full frontal impact (which is controlled by accel-
eration pulse). The configurations of 9.75%, 13.91%, 19.74%,
24.42%, 29.14% and 33.45% mass reduction cases show similar
or lower peak acceleration on the drive side, thus will not
 FIGURE 23   Acceleration pulses on the driver side for TWB
designs of front rails using HSLA350 grade.
© SAE International
© SAE International
© 2018 SAE International. All Rights Reserved.
 FIGURE 24   Acceleration pulses on the driver side for TWB
designs of front rails using NEXMET™1000 grade.
compromise the safety performance. For the NEXMET™1000
grade, the peak acceleration for the 4.58%, 9.75%, 14.75%,
19.86% mass reduction configurations of TWB designs show
significantly higher acceleration pulses than baseline, due to
the high yield and tensile strength of the material grade and
thus increased rigidity and toughness. The thickness configu-
rations for 22.5%, 28.22%, 33.65%, 37.65% and 40.77% mass
reductions show lower peak acceleration than the baseline,
and thus can be adopted in the lightweighting design.
The acceleration pulses on the passenger side during NCAP
frontal impact for the TWB design of front rails were plotted
in Figures 25 and 26 for HSLA350 and NEXMET™1000 grades
respectively. For HSLA350 grade, the 5.4% mass reduction
configuration shows significantly higher peak acceleration than
the baseline, while all other configurations show similar or
lower peak accelerations than the baseline. For the
 FIGURE 25   Acceleration pulses on the passenger side for
TWB designs of front rails using HSLA350 grade.
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10 A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION
 FIGURE 26   Acceleration pulses on the passenger side for
TWB designs of front rails using NEXMET™1000 grade.
© SAE International
NEXMET™1000 grade, the peak acceleration for the 4.58%,
9.75%, 14.75%, 19.86% and 22.5% mass reduction configurations
show significantly higher acceleration pulses than baseline, due
to the high yield and tensile strength of the material grade and
thus increased rigidity of the front rails. The thickness configu-
rations for 28.22%, 33.65%, 37.65% and 40.77% mass reductions
show similar or lower peak acceleration than the baseline, and
thus can be adopted in the lightweighting design.
Conclusion
The tailor welded blanks (TWB) technology allows for fully
optimized material usage for lightweighting and crash safety
performance. As can be seen in this study, the weight of the
front rails can be reduced by up to 33% using the TWB design
while maintaining the torsional and bending rigidity. The
safety rating of the sedan is improved for moderate overlap
frontal crash using the lightweighting TWB designs with
improved material efficiency and increased toughness for
energy absorption. For the US-NCAP full frontal impact, the
rigidity of front rails need to be reduced for the TWB designs
to keep the peak acceleration similar or lower than the baseline.
For HSLA350 grade, a mass reduction of at least 9.75% is
required for the TWB design to keep the peak acceleration no
higher than baseline. The manufacturing of this TWB front
rail structure and related cost will be studied in future study.
The neighboring TWB blanks can be made into one single
blank with uniform thickness for manufacturability and cost
reduction if their optimized thickness difference is small (for
example, less than 0.1 mm). Tailor rolled blank technology
can also be used for this front rail lightweighting design to
reduce the cost.
AK Steel’s NEXMET™1000 grade offers high yield and
tensile strength and improved capability for energy absorp-
tion. Four parts on the front rails were chosen for
NEXMET™1000 grade to replace the original HSLA350. For
moderate overlap frontal crash, better firewall intrusion
performance can be expected using NEXMET™1000 with
more mass reduction potential (>40%). For US-NCAP full
frontal impact, a mass reduction of at least 28.22% is required
for the TWB design using NEXMET™1000 the keep the peak
acceleration similar or lower than the baseline. The latest
advancements in steel technology along with the ESL methods
will continue to move the automotive performance and
lightweighting forward.
An optimal thickness coefficient φ is proposed in this
study to evaluate the material efficiency of a TWB blank for
a certain mass saving target and the percentage of thickness
change required to reach the most efficient material usage.
The optimal thickness results through ESL using HSLA350
and NEXMET™1000 grades were evaluated using this optimal
thickness coefficient. The critical locations on front rails for
crash safety were identified and the amount of thickness
changes characterized. The locations that are overdesigned
for crash safety were also identified. This optimal thickness
coefficient can guide the automotive design for lightweighting.
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12 A TAILOR WELDED BLANKS DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE FRONT RAILS BY ESL OPTIMIZATION

Contact Information expertise includes NVH, multi-disciplinary structural opti-

mization and crash safety analysis of vehicles.
Jianyong Liang, Ph.D.,
Company address: 14661 Rotunda Dr, Dearborn, Michigan,
CAE engineer at AK Steel Corporation.
U.S. 48120.
His work focused on the lightweighting of vehicles using the
Work phone: (313) 317-6712
AHSS and the next and 3rd generation AHSS grades. His
Jianyong.Liang@aksteel.com

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