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B PILLAR DESIGN
through Master
Section
Development.
B PILLAR DESIGN THROUGH MASTER SECTION DEVELOPMENT AIM
The objective of this project to develop Closed Surface
Model using Master Sections and to develop attachment
features for Fixation of Parts by following OEM Design
standards and procedures in CATIA SURFACE WORKBENCH
and PART DESIGN ABSTRACT The report details about…

CATIA DESIGN FEA

Pradeep M
updated on 07 Sep 2020

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Project Details

B PILLAR DESIGN THROUGH MASTER SECTION

DEVELOPMENT

AIM

The objective of this project to develop Closed

Surface Model using Master Sections and to
develop attachment features for Fixation of
Parts by following OEM Design standards and
procedures in CATIA SURFACE WORKBENCH and
PART DESIGN

ABSTRACT

The report details about the Design Life Cycle in

Automotive Industry with an practical working
model of B PILLAR COVER on the B PILLAR of Car
Interior. The report explains the steps followed
in creating the tooling axis followed by detail
methods in creating B-Surface, Class C
Surface and to closed body. The Attachment
features creation is also reported by following
the design guidelines and finally analysis of
Draft to prevent the failure and improve the
feasibility of manufacturing the part in plastic
injection molding.

DESCRIPTION

MASTER SECTION

Master Sections are the guides for design

requirements which shapes the component
after technical styling of Class A Surfaces

The body frame is mainly composed of floor

longitudinal beams, upper side beams, door sill
beams, and front cover, the rear beam, A-pillar,
B-pillar, C-pillar and other load-bearing beam
structures are composed.

Master Sections are parameterized model of

the vehicle body that outlines the guide for NPD
Team

In this Report B Pillar Cover Creation with

detailed procedures of Surface Development
and Attachement features are covered

OVERVIEW DESIGN LIFE CYCLE AUTOMOTIVE

INDUSTRY [1]

The Stages of Design Life Cycle are

Concept Sketches:

Concept sketches are rough idea of free hand

sketch obtained through styling team and will
be used to prepare the Model. It is usually done
through pen and paper and through the
painting software. This is will be used to
generate the concept for preparing the model
by incorporating various styles and information
obtained through the stakeholders

CLASS A Creation:

After finalizing the concept the sketches are

usually worked in software’s such as Autodesk
Alias to create Class A Surface

Clay Modeling :

The Class A Surface is concurrently worked by

clay modelers to brainstorm and benchmark
the styling of the product and later the
Concept is validated by bringing up a rough
clay model and then it is passed on to the
Design team for the preparation of New
Product Design (NPD) CAD.

NPD CAD

This where the development of surfaces to

parts in CAD kick off and Design engineers
involvement is vital in this stage.

The Designers will work on the Input Class A

surfaces which are validated from the
Feasibility team

The procedure followed in creation of the

plastic New Product Design are

Tooling Axis
B Surface Creation
C Surface Creation
Closed Body Creation
Draft Analysis

TOOLING AXIS

The given Class A input is analyzed to envision

the part to manufacture and Tooling axis or
Tooling Direction or Die line is the direction that
molds pull apart in injection molding. There are
two mold pieces names core and cavity. Thus
tooling direction determines Mold seperation
and also becomes vital in developing the
plastic product which is drafted to desired
nominal angle for feasible clearance and
ejection of final part from the mold.

The Steps Followed in creating Tooling Axis

1. A Reference Point is created along the Surface

zero and new Axis system is created
2. The X Direction and Y direction along the Class
A were used to create Tooling direction
3. Finally the Tooling axis is created by bisecting
the two lines and it is published. Class A
Surface as input using surface operation
commands Class B is developed
4. The tooling Axis determines the direction of
Class C boundary swept with draft direction.
5. When viewing from tooling direction normal all
the parts that are drafted should be visible so it
gives an rough idea to determine product
manufacturing in Injection molding
In B Pillar Model there are Two Tooling
Directions one on Main tooling and other on
Lifter Side that is used to eject the parts during
injection modling

Lifter Axis is used because the Attachment

feature is bounded by close walls

CLASS A IMPROVEMENT

Class A Surface is the outer skin of the product

which is purely an aesthetic model with no
engineering properties involved

The CLASS A Surface has lot of irregular

patches and complexity which are improved
using Multi Section Surfaces and Surface Trims
which forms the Improved Class A Input

A Tangential Error Propogation method is used

to validate the Surfaces using Boundary
option.

The Class A has Flanges which are obtained

through Master Sections and developed and
compared

Finally the Class A Improved is used as input

Model and is Publihsed

B Surface creation

The next step is to design B surface for the

input which is usually the surface where all
engineering aspects and support creations are
done.
The B surface Creation is performed using
surface operations in CATIA which is an offset
from Class A with dimension proportional to
the thickness of the part
In B Pillar Design the B surface is offset 2mm
from the input which is the thickness of the
part
The B surface is an extrapolated surface
compared to A surface and forms the bottom
skin of the part
The Offset Surface leads to Surface
Degenerations if

a. Rapid change in curvature or surface

continuity
b. Low Radius of CLASS A
c. Conic or Styling Fillets
The Remedy is to untrim , extrapolate and trim
or create surfaces using Multi Surface Option
and Join

Corrected B Surfaces

In this way the Patches are coorected along

the B Surfaces and the part is Extraploated
with offset of 2mm from A Surface

C Surface Creation

The Next step is to from the C surface which is

an intermediate surface between A and B and
is used to give the closed surface appearance
to the design
The C Surface is swept using the profile as
boundary line of Class A which is the Guide
curve with a subtype along draft direction.
The Direction of the sweep is the tooling
direction formed earlier
The draft angle for the sweep operation is
provided which is 3 Degree and surface is
swept for length above the thickness of the
specified part
The C Surfaces must be drafted outwards from
the A Side to avoid the parting Line along the A
Surface
The C surface is refined using smooth Curve
options to remove the complexity and patches
along the swept surface
Finally the Class A and Class C surfaces are
joined together and connexity of surfaces
should be less than 0.003mm and the surfaces
are merged.

C Surface merged with Class A

Closed Body Creation

The merged surface is then trimmed with B

surface to form the closed surface.
The Closed surface is then validated to find the
irregularities along the edges and
imperfections along the edges were then
corrected using operation like extrapolate and
surface trim
This Closed surface is the outer skin and finally
the part is formed by Closed Surface in part
design workbench
The final part is measured to validate the
uniform thickness of the part especially along
the filleted edges.
The Uniform Thickness ensures that the part
Created doesnt form Sink Mark and Flow Lines
along Class A

ATTACHMENT FEATURES

The Attachment features are the Fixation and

Location features that Fixes the components
The Common Attachment features used in B
Pillar Are

1. Doghouse with 4 Way Locator

2. Ribs
DOGHOUSE

Using the Master Section the Doghouse is

created and then part modelled using
Thickness option

The 4 Way Locator is Formed above the Dog

House which locates the B pillar towards the
Mating Surfaces
The Dog House Design Rules are
The Thickness of the Connecting surface
towards B Side should be 40% off the main
thickness
The Walls are drafted with Min 0.5 Degrees
along the Main Tooling Direction
The Attachement feature created needs a
seperate tooling axis to clear the part Hence a
Lifter Axis is used

The Surfaces that are cleared along the Lifter

axis are also given a Minumal Draft
The Height of the attahcment walls should be a
minimum of 3 mm
This avoids the plastic defects on the B Side
and maintains the texture of A Side

The Dog House with four Way Locator are

shown below

Four Way Locators are Tapered along the

Edges to create an entry point for locators and
the Locator Walls are drafted along the Main
Tooling Direction.

The Walls are minimum of above 0.4 times of

the total Thickness to avoid shot incapacity
during plastic product creations and the apex
walls are ensured to enough for creation of
parts.

RIBS

Ribs provide stifness to the parts and can be to

impart thougness whthout increasing the part
thickenss and are locators and provide
allignment to the mating parts

The Design Rules for two way and four way

fixtures are

Rib Wall Thickness should be 0.4 times of

Thickness of the part
The Drafted walls of rib should be within 0.5
degrees
The top height of rib should be at least 0.70
mm thick to allow the molten plastic to reach
the top to avoid Short Shot
The Thickness of the Rib, Fillet Radius, Draft and
rib root thickness are measured and are
withing the design specifications

In B Pillar The Ribs are 50mm apart on both

Sides

Thus B Pillar Cover is Surface Development is

completed and attachment features are
added.
It should be noted that the fixation of bolt
locators always follow 3-2-1 Taylor Principle.
Translational Movements along X,Y,Z Axis (
Positive and Negative)
Rotational Movement along X,Y,Z Axis (
Clockwise and Anticlockwise)
The Improvement in Given B Pillar could be an
addition of another Dog House at an extreme
end to satisy the Taylor's principle and
Thermal Stakes are provide that arrests all
degrees of freedom and completly fits the B
Pillar Part

DRAFT ANALYSIS

The finished part is then analyzed to detect if

the drafted part will be easily removed from
the injection molding.

Draft Analysis option in CATIA is enabled

through Insert> Analysis> Feature Draft Analysis

The Draft Analysis Icon has

1. Mode
2. Display
3. Direction
Mode:

This is the color code that specifies the color to

part based on the draft angles and is two types

Quick Analysis
Full Analysis

The Color code specifications for B Pillar DRAFT

ANALYSIS

Display:

The various display modes are

Show/hide Color scale

Running point Analysis
Highlight Representations
Light Effect

The display options is used to refine the

analysis and results

DIRECTION:

This is one of the important tool which

Compass Definition: This is used to pan the

compass to the die line or tool direction.
Lock Direction: This option locks the compass
at the specified position
Invert Draft Analysis: which is used to invert the
axis system and used to analyze the negative
tooling direction

Draft Analysis Procedure

The part created has to be changed to

material mode in display frame
Then by enabling compass definition the axis
system is pan along the direction of the part
and aligned in line with the tooling direction
Lock Direction is applied that fixes the compass
and then the mode dialog box is formed by
snapping at any point on the part
The Color Codes are classified and Draft Angle
are applied
Then the Running point analysis is used to
hover around the part to analyze the
permissible draft angles and the analysis is
saved

The Analysis is provided below

DRAFT REPORT

The Draft Report for B Pillar Model is shown

Below

The Minumum Draft for All A Side Surfaces are 3

Degrees

The Surfaces that are below 3 Degree are

shown Below

The B Side Surface Analysis is Shown Below

All The C Side Surfaces are are drafted and are

below 2.9 degree

The Main Tooling Draft Analysis of the

Attchement features are shown below

The Lifter Axis Draft Analysis are shown below

RESULT

The Green color is drafted walls above 3

degree
The Blue color is drafted walls from 0-3 degree
The red surfaces are negative degree

The analysis shows the drafted walls are

above the par of 3 degree which is permissible
to manufacture in the injection modeling
The Running point analysis hovered along the
drafted walls show parts are above 3 and will
be easily cleared from ejection.
The Areas in Negative Tooling that falls short to
the permisble design Rules are shown
These surface are corrected using Surface
Operations and generaly in OEM Class A
Improvement requires prior approval from
Styling team and the draft report and analysis
is used to get approval

The Tree Structure are Classified and the

important features are published and the
operations are renamed and classified into
geometric subset shown below.

Publication leads to easy access of parts

rather navigate through the specification tree

The 2D Sketch created for this operation are

positioned sketches projected through a point
and all geometries are fully constrained

CONCLUSION

Thus a Tooling Axis is created and a open

aesthetic Class A Surface is developed into a
closed surface with all plastic design rules and
a final part body is created out of it in CATIA
Surface Work Bench. The Design is then
validated with Master Section and understood
the use of Master Section Development in
Product Design through development of B Pillar
Cover used in the Car Interiors.

REFERENCES

[1] Automotive trims design. (2019, June 20).

Advanced Structures India | Automotive
Benchmarking, Teardown, Development &
Testing. https://advancedstructures.in/blogs/a
utomotive-trims-design/

[2] Automotive Plastic Design (Accessed 2020

September 07) Skill Lync | https://skill-
lync.com/courses/all/automotive-plastic-
design-using-catia-v5
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