Fender Design Challenge

The Fender Design :

The fender is a part of automotive vehicles where its function is to stop all the debris from the road doesnt hit the vehicle caused by the roatation of wheel. The fenders also help in preventing the debris from the road hitting the pedastrians of the road. The mounting points considered while designing the fenders are 

• Drip Area.
• Sill Area.
• Cowl Area.
• A Pillar.
• Body of the vehicle.

 The fender is mounted to the vehicle mostly with well nuts.

There are two types of fenders that arer used in vehicles, they are

• Full Fender body
• Half Fender body

Full Fender :

These fenders are commonly used in the older vehicles. They are currently not used in modern cars because of the wastage they produce while manufacturing and their extra fender area in comparison with the half fender is not very helpful in most scenarios.

Half fender :

These are the fenders that most of the cars use. This is very easy to manufacture and the wastage they produce very less. The half fender satisfies all the functions of the full fender. They are very easy to manufacture and they are also cost efficient.

Drip Area is the area of the fender that will be joined to the engine compartment. There are many constraints for designing the Drip area. There has to be a minimum of 200mm gap left between the plastic compartment and the rear end of the fender, so there the wiper motors and other components are fixed. Also at the front end of the fender, there has to be a minimum of 100mm gap, so the headlight compartment is fixed without any difficulties. 

The two holes that are present in the drip area are the locator holes. the locator holes are also present in the rail on the car and the drip area so that the mounting on the fender to the vehicle is easy and faster.

 At times, Ribs are also made from the Drip area so that there is enough strength for the mounting to held the fender to the vehicle. 

The Hood side drip's depth should not be above 60mm because of the spring effect. If the length is more than 60mm, the spring effect will make the fender to spring up and down, therby causing it to lose its properties. The optimum depth can be as low as possible or in the range of 40mm.

The eye contact area between the fender and the hood is placed as 3 degrees, so the consumer couldnt see the parts or the nuts and bolts that are used to join the fender to the vehicle. All these referred values are the values that are used by a big automotive company, so the values change accordingly, to the requirements vehicle or the size of the tools used for the manufacturing of the vehicle.

The design extensions of each mounting mostly have locator holes so the fitting of each parts in the vehicle becomes guided and easy.

The A pillar mounting is also made from the design part of the Fender. The design specs are made from the master section which is the reference from the previous successful vehicle's model. The model is made differentely for different vehicles according to the pack if they have baffle for spring effect of the sheet metal. The side indicators mounting designs are also issued if the vehicle has a side mounting indicators. For most of the top hand vehicles, the side indicators will be installed on the side of the OVRM. 

The bottom part of the vehicle's chassis is connected to the sill area of the fender. The sill area of the vehicle is basically an extended part of the vehicle, where the base sheet is extended and then embossed to a vertical plane to maintain a plane level so the tool operation is very easily handled. All the designs are designed and done according to the easier operation of the tool.  The sill area has small releif to withstand the extra load to resist deforming.

The Open hood area of the car when the Fender is installed.

 The fender uses push pin clips for the side mounting ( where the plastic part at the wheel arch is joined to the fender ), which is a plastic clip that mounts just by pressing it against the surface. This method is used world wide whereas in some vehicles they also use Brackets for additional support as well.