CBIES AUTOMOTIVE|The Unobtrusive But Important Car Part -- Dashboard Tube

Lightweighting is not only one of the key technologies to achieve energy saving and emission reduction, but also facilitates the reduction of inertia forces during collisions and improves crash safety, which has become one of the important directions in the development of the automotive industry.

The implementation strategy of lightweighting is to optimise each assembly or component one by one according to its load-bearing conditions, under the premise of ensuring vehicle performance objectives and ride quality, in order to minimise the mass of each component and ultimately achieve a reduction in the overall vehicle mass. CBIES AUTOMOTIVE is a professional exporter of automotive parts and components and is constantly developing and improving its products to achieve the development direction of lightweight. Our main products include side door impact tubes, exhaust pipes, instrument beam pipes, torsion bars and other tubular products, which are renowned for their quality. The next step is for CBIES to lead you to a deeper understanding of this inconspicuous but important instrument cross-beam tube in automobiles.

A. In traditional sheet metal welded cross members, the main beam is usually a rolled and seamed steel tube of the steel plate and the bracket is a pressed part, which is combined by gas shield welding, position welding, convex welding and mechanical fixing. The material is currently mainly cold-rolled sheet steel, with additional anti-corrosion treatment on some models.

B. Magnesium alloy instrument panel crossbeam is formed in one go by die-casting, trimmed and deburred by punching and cutting moulds, and then machined to complete the special requirements of positioning and installation, non-mould forming and other special structures. The materials are mainly AM50 and AM60 series, which have good elongation and energy absorption properties in addition to high strength and good casting properties.

C. Aluminium alloy extrusion and stamping type use extruded aluminium alloy profiles and stamped aluminium alloy sheets, mainly made of deformed aluminium alloy 6 series which can withstand pressure processing and is welded by electron beam laser.

D. All-plastic dashboard beams are divided into carbon fibre dashboard beams and alloy plastic dashboard beams, the former is affected by the cost and has not yet been applied in large quantities; the latter is affected by the strength and stiffness of the material and is still in the research stage, the material is mainly glass fibre reinforced PP.

E. Hybrid dashboard beams use high-specific strength materials in the main load area and cost-effective materials in other areas, effectively balancing strength, weight and cost.

However, the Tailor rolled blank (TRB) technology, developed through flexible rolling technology, allows for the optimisation of component geometry and material layout to suit the load-bearing characteristics of different areas, resulting in material savings and mass reduction. Compared with laser welding technology, TRB has no weld seam at the location of thickness change, no stress concentration in the area of sudden thickness change when bearing, and good production continuity, high efficiency and low cost, so the proportion of application in the field of automotive parts is gradually increasing.

Audi, BMW, GM and other automotive companies have used differential thick plate body components from Mubea in Germany, such as load beam structures, body connectors and reinforcement parts) in their automotive products.

The vehicle dashboard tube beam carries the equipment and interior components required to support the human-machine interface controls. Structural components such as energy-absorbing brackets for member protection, brackets for mounting instruments and air conditioning, and airbag module brackets are welded to the dashboard tube beam. This beam is also designed with a support column for the steering wheel steering column, which can lead to an eccentric steering wheel if the beam is not sufficiently rigid.

In order to cope with the complex load-bearing conditions, therefore, it is not only necessary that the welding quality between the tube beam and the other structural members is good, but also that the strength is high. In particular, it must be able to withstand shock loads from low order frequencies, vertical bumps, airbag bursts, brake mount intrusion, etc.