An increasingly competitive automotive market offers its products to increasingly demanding customers. Numerous standards and rules, primarily regarding safety and environmental impact, are issued by regulating bodies and governments, making today’s vehicles more and more complex. The specifications vehicles must comply with often contrast with each other. The time between the conception of a vehicle and its entering the market, the so called time to market, is an essential factor for its commercial success. The traditional approach, based on the construction of prototypes, subsequent experimentation and modification, is no longer adequate. When design changes are introduced during the development of. | 28 MATHEMATICAL MODELS FOR THE VEHICLE An increasingly competitive automotive market offers its products to increasingly demanding customers. Numerous standards and rules primarily regarding safety and environmental impact are issued by regulating bodies and governments making today s vehicles more and more complex. The specifications vehicles must comply with often contrast with each other. The time between the conception of a vehicle and its entering the market the so called time to market is an essential factor for its commercial success. The traditional approach based on the construction of prototypes subsequent experimentation and modification is no longer adequate. When design changes are introduced during the development of any machine they should be implemented as early as possible. The later such changes are made the smaller the advantages both in terms of economics but also more generally while related costs are higher Fig. . In the early stages of development when the vehicle is merely an idea or the result of a preliminary study major changes may be introduced at low cost but when the design proceeds toward the construction of prototypes or the product launch the freedom of designers is reduced and the costs linked to changes not only to the design but also to prototypes and above all to production equipment soar. This consideration alone can explain the increasing significance of activities like the construction of mathematical models virtual experimentation and simulation in the motor vehicle industry. The costs linked with the construction of prototypes and physical experimentation are continuously growing while the increase of computational power causes a decrease of computational times and thus of the costs linked with the construction of mathematical models and the ensuing numerical experimentation. G. Genta L. Morello The Automotive Chassis Volume 2 System Design 503 Mechanical Engineering Series Springer Science Business Media . 2009 504
