Ebase - Sliding bay frame system

The safety hybrid frame forms a vehicle structure that is made up of flat support structures, shear-supporting nodal areas and associated joints.

The main loads acting on the vehicle structure are absorbed by buckling-resistant and uniformly shear-stressed shear wall and shear panel areas of the entire load-bearing structure as well as by components subjected to tensile and compressive stress, resulting in a particularly high lightweight design potential.

The main stress areas of the frame are the front end, substructure and rear end as well as the associated joints. The front and rear consist of the bumper with energy absorption element, front longitudinal member with integrated crash box, shear/torsion box and bulkhead. The substructure is made up of the node structures in the A-pillar area, the left and right outer longitudinal members, the floor structure and the battery box as well as the associated battery box holder with cover as an integrated thrust/torsion box.

The safety hybrid frame can be flexibly dimensioned in terms of shape, load-bearing capacity and safety properties depending on the field of application of the future vehicle (e.g. as a passenger or commercial vehicle). In synergy, the frame and superstructure together fulfill the static and dynamic load requirements of the entire vehicle structure, with the frame assuming the dominant share of the load-bearing and safety functions.

The front end and rear each support a three-stage energy absorption concept in the event of a frontal crash. The bumper has the lowest load level with partially elastic/plastic deformation characteristics. This is activated in the event of minor rear-end collisions or the lowest local load application on the bumper. At higher crash load levels in the medium load stage, the crash box integrated in the front longitudinal member is activated and plastically deformed in a controlled manner.
The adjoining rear part of the left and right front longitudinal member, the shear torsion box and the node in the A-pillar area absorb the plastic deformation energy at the highest load level in the event of a crash without impairing the survival space in the passenger cell.

Shear panel frame system as a further development of the space frame

All structural components and joints are designed in such a way that the stresses acting on the frame from the outside are primarily absorbed by buckling-resistant shear panels and shear wall areas as well as tensile and compression-resistant structures matched to them.

The special design of the node areas and joints with regard to the stiffness distribution in the longitudinal and transverse direction and the targeted selection of the shape of the structural components achieve large and particularly uniform load redistributions in the shear plane of the flat structural components.

Due to these very evenly distributed shear stresses in the structural surfaces of the structural components, which are mainly dimensioned for buckling stiffness, the wall thicknesses of all structural components can be significantly reduced, resulting in a particularly weight-reduced vehicle structure compared to conventional designs.

Certain load-bearing structural areas are designed as node structures that have a special geometry and structural stiffness distribution. The loads acting on the nodes in different directions are redirected into the buckling-resistant shear panel areas in a way that supports the described shear panel concept.

The buckling-resistant shear wall and shear panel areas can be designed as buckling-resistant thin-walled shells and/or sandwich structures consisting of metals or plastics as well as thin-walled shells made of fiber-reinforced plastics and metals or combinations of these materials.