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Stiff, safe, silent
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01/05/2007
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Ford claims its new Mondeo is the most technically advanced car of its class in Europe. Ian Adcock picks out some of the highlights of this platform, the five-door model of which has a torsional stiffness of 1,030kgNm/rad, only 30kgNm/rad less than the four-door model. This resulted from around 100 virtual full body simulations using a new full body model with 930,000 elements that took four months out the development programme and reduced the number of pre-manufacturing vehicles by 30%. Increased body stiffness and careful attention to NVH also reduced cabin noise by 2 to 4dB, so driving at 160km/h is no noisier than travelling at 120km/h.
First application of Ford’s Easyfuel capless refuelling system. It’s estimated that in the UK alone 120,000 cars are incorrectly fuelled a year. Ford has developed a special fuel inhibitor within the fuel filler neck specifically designed around different sizes of fuel nozzle that only allows a nozzle matching the corresponding fuel type of the car to enter the filler neck.
New pedestrian impact features include a hexageneous inner skin to the bonnet to increase the absorbent properties and reduce energy on impact, while a lower leg stiffener has been introduced on the lower part of the bumper. The plastic element of this collapses in a specific manner to reduce knee bend on impact.
Unique trigger blocks behind the bumper shear on impact allowing the cooling pack to move out of the way reducing damage, repair bills and insurance costs. It took 1,000 computer simulations to achieve the correct sequence.
Ford’s Intelligent Protection System (IPS) features a new driver’s knee airbag limiting the pelvis movement in a crash, increasing the distance between the chest and steering wheel. Distributing the crash loads more evenly over the driver’s body reduces peak loads. This is combined with a horizontal stroking steering column developed by Volvo and previously used on the S-Max.
New voice control technology developed by Vocom doesn’t require any teaching to recognise different voices. Specific commands are displayed on the screen in front of the driver and always come up in context to what the driver wants, eg navigation, phone etc. It then repeats the command back.
A first for Ford is a diode laser weld between the roof and body sides for seamless appearance. The 3,000W laser beam is 30% more efficient than other systems and operates at 25m/min.
Ford’s new Interactive Vehicle Dynamics Control with continuously controlled damping (CCD) also includes hill launch assist. CCD controls pitch and roll by continuously monitoring and adjusting damper rate every fifth of a second.
Hill launch assist provides a 2.5 secs delay when transferring from the brake to the accelerator pedal by maintaining pressure in the brake system, avoiding the need to briefly use the handbrake to hold the car on an incline.
Ford’s human-machine interface team now includes website designers and dedicated psychologists to ensure that all the driver control systems are intuitive and do not have to be learnt. For example, in addition to touchscreen technology, steering wheel controls mimic mobile phone style command buttons. A new ICIDO virtual reality cave and software was used to develop the interior packaging and HMI strategy.
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Author
Ian Adcock
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