An integrated material-structure-performance lightweight design for commercial vehicle cab

Due to the high discreteness and the strong nonlinearity during the material plastic stage, the computational efficiency and accuracy of the surrogate model-based multi-objective lightweight design methods for commercial cab-in-white (CIW) remain relatively limited. To address this issue, an integrated material-structure-performance lightweight design framework is proposed. The framework comprises two key steps: first, an integrated material-performance lightweight material selection method is developed based on the established relationships among component thickness, material properties, and structural performance; second, an integrated structure-performance multi-objective optimization method, incorporating a second-order response surface model (RSM2) and the Modified Preference Score Index (MPSI) method, is introduced for structural lightweight design. This integrated framework is then applied to the CIW to enable coordinated optimization of materials, structure, and performance. The results show that, while satisfying all performance requirements of the cab, the proposed lightweight design framework results in an 18.79 kg decrease in CIW mass and a reduction of 36.59 CNY in material costs, thereby demonstrating its effectiveness and practicality.