Perceptual matching of shape design style between wheel hub and car type

The current automobile industry lacks matching rules between wheel hubs and car types: given the multitude of potential combinations between these two vehicle components, it is often difficult for manufacturers to confirm that their selected design is truly the most appropriate for and harmonious with a given car. For the purpose of providing guidelines for wheel hubs selection, this paper, therefore, presented a case study on 6 typical types of cars and 20 wheel hubs, examined their shape design styles and accordingly proposed a methodology for evaluating the perceptual matching quality between the two through a participatory experiment, including (1) identification of Kansei attributes, (2) matching evaluation by ranking method, and (3) semantic differential (SD) evaluation of wheels and car bodies separately. Based on computing the correlations of SD evaluation value vectors between bodies and wheels, the matching quality was verified to have a strong relationship with the similarity of the components' design style. With a subsequent correspondence analysis of ranking data, the obtained projection value explicitly reflected the strength of the association between wheel hubs and corresponding car types. As a result, 6 positive and 3 negative representative design samples of wheel hubs were obtained for each type of car. Accordingly, design solutions were recommended, and the achievements can be readily employed by companies to propose appropriate designs that precisely meet market demands. Relevance to industry: This paper suggests that automobile product developers consider a matching relationship among the components within their cars. The matching quality of one component has been verified to be strongly related to the similarity between its shape design style and holistic car image. This paper's findings can be readily employed by automobile manufactures for predicting appropriate wheel hub designs according to the specific requirements of vehicle development. These well-founded design solutions will meet the market demands precisely. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.