Fender Design Challenge

OBJECTIVE:

The main objective is to design the fender in NX CAD as per the given dimensions.

FRONT FENDER:

A fender is the curved portion of the car’s body that sits over and houses the wheels. Its purpose is to keep mud, rocks, and other road debris from being thrown around by the tires. In other words, the fender is a housing for the wheels that keeps road debris contained. If there was nothing covering the wheels, all kinds of debris would be kicked up by the rotating tires. The fender not only protects your car from sustaining damage from road debris but it prevents this debris from being thrown up at other vehicles on the road.

TYPES OF FENDER:

• Full bumper type
• Half bumper type

In full bumper type, the wheel is fully covered by the fender made of metal, while in half bumper type, a plastic body called baffle is placed between fender and wheel to reduce the weight of the car and material wastage.

MOUNTINGS:

The fender has some mounting areas for fixing it to the car structure by using fasteners. The mountings are decided by the designer with respect to the car model. Some of them are

• Body
• ‘A’ Pillar
• Sill
• Cowl
• Drip

FENDER DESIGN:

The skin of the fender and dimensions of the drip area are provided initially. For other mounting regions, the dimensions may according to the car model. Tools like offset curve in face, curve on surface, trim sheet, emboss, face and edge blend, dart and law extension are used to create the fender in NX CAD.

1.DRIP AREA MOUNTING:

In drip area, some constraints are followed because most of the cars are designed in similar way.

• The drip area should be located 300mm or less from the rear side to provide space for cowl top and 150mm from the front side of the fender to provide space for headlight mounting.
• The depth of the drip area should be 40mm or less. If it exceeds 60mm, then spring back effect takes place at the drip area.
• The drip area should be 10mm or more away from the engine horizontally.
• Ribs or beads are provided to improve the strength of the drip area.

2.SILL MOUNTING:

Sill mounting is created before the front door side and deigned according to the designer’s wish. Law extension is used and datum plane is created to draw the sketch which is embossed later.

3.BUMPER MOUNTING:

This mounting is created at the front side of the fender to mount with the bumper.

4.‘A’ PILLAR MOUNTING:

‘A’ pillar mounting is designed according to the designer’s wish and sketch is drawn and embossed to create this mounting. Ribs are provided for support. Finally face and edge blends are applied.

5.BAFFLE MOUNTING:

In half bumper type, baffle is provided to reduce wastage and weight of the fender. For this, datum plane is created and sketch is drawn. Then trim sheet operation is done.

FINAL DESIGN OF FENDER:

After creating all the mountings, the sheet is thickened to make it a solid body.

CONCLUSION:

The fender is designed in NX CAD using the fender skin and drip area dimensions provided.