Fender Design Challenge

Objective:

To design Drip area, Sill mount, Bumper mount, and A-Pillar mount on Fender

Introduction:

• A fender is a curved portion of a car's body that sits over and houses the wheel.
• Fender prevents sand, mud, rocks, and dirt materials from being thrown into the air due to rotating tires.
• Fender houses the wheels in such a way that sand, mud, and rock particles don't hit the people walking sideways of roads.
• According to standards, wheels are little inside from the surface of the fender. 
• Fender also avoids hitting mud and rock to the inside of the engine compartment

Figure 1: Fender of Car

Types of Fender:

1. Full Bumper type

This type of fender is conventional and is obsolete these days. The reason being, it requires a bigger size blank for production and also, produces large scrap.

2. Half Bumper type

This is a common fender type used these days. Reducing the size of the Fender helps in saving material, takes less time in production. The overall weight of the Fender is reduced and scrap produced is also less..

Figure 2: Types of Fender

Mountings on Fender:

1. Bumper
2. Drip
3. A-Pillar
4. Sill
5. Cowl

Design

Figure 3: Fender with mountings

1. Design of Drip area

The drip area is the region where Fender gets in contact with the Engine compartment and fasteners are used to tight both of them.

Figure 4: Drip area dimensions

Figure 5: Drip Area with Ribs

Figure 6: 5mm flat surface for bolts

As from the above figure, Embosses are made to make the bolting region strong. A flat surface of 5 mm is provided near the bolt holes so that the bolts have a flat surface to sit on. Ribs are made to make the region strong.

2. A-Pillar Mounting

Figure 7: A-Pillar Mounting

Here, also Embosses are made to make the bolting region strong.

3. Bumper Mounting

This is the mounting area of fender to the bumper. Bumpers are made up of plastic that covers the bottom front and back parts of the car. It protects the car at the time of collisions.

Figure 8: Bumper Mounting

4. Sill Mounting

Figure 9: Sill Mounting

5. Splash Cover Mounting

At these points, splash covers are mounted to avoid the mud, dirt, and rock particles getting inside the engine compartment. Embosses are not created in this area because splash is a rubber cum plastic part mounted by plastic push pin clips and doesn't require a flat surface for mounting. Moreover, this part is no heavy so there is no need to create Emboss and give more strength.

Figure 10: Splash Cover Mounting

Smoothing of sharp edges

Reliefs are provided at the sharp edges to make the surfaces at the corner smooth.

Figure 11: Smoothing of sharp edges

Fender after giving a thickness of 0.65 mm