A NEW ERA IN MAHINDRA’S DRIVING DYNAMICS: ACHIEVING WORLD-CLASS DYNAMICS PERFORMANCE OF THE NEW XUV700 AND CUTTING DOWN DEVELOPMENT TIME AND COST USING A DRIVING SIMULATOR
Wednesday 18 May 2022 14:50
India’s leading brand Mahindra and Mahindra has recently launched its flagship seven-seater SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) named XUV 700 with resounding success and market response. The chassis of XUV 700 was developed in collaboration with IDIADA with the objective of achieving world-class driving dynamics in terms of steering, handling, stability and ride comfort. In addition to that, Mahindra wanted to streamline the development process, freezing most of the suspension hard points and specifications only based on simulation to ensure that the physical testing could be really dedicated to fine tuning with few short lead time components. The new and innovative development process required to apply a strongly CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) oriented approach and a seamless integration between the virtual and the physical development.
In this regard, The DiM250 simulator was an essential piece of this approach. From the concept phase until the design freeze, every chassis component was evaluated on the simulator before being produced and tested. Most of the key design decisions that were taken on the simulator proved to perform well on the physical prototypes that could provide a solid starting point for the tuning. As a result, by following this frugal process, Mahindra could reduce the development time by almost 12 months compared to any conventional development process. The present work will provide few relevant and interesting examples related with the hardpoints, steering system and dampers.
