Fender Design Challenge
Fender Design
Fender is the part of an automobile, or any other vehicle body that frames the wheel approximately 5cm above it. It is used to prevent sand, mud, rocks and liquids which can be thrown by rotating tires, in air.
Types of Bumpers
- Full Bumper Type:
The full bumper type fender was used in old cars. It covered the full area till the front lights. However, it has a lot of extra material which increases weight of the car. Hence, this type of fenders is no longer used in automobiles.
- Half Bumper Type:
Nowadays, this is most used in automobiles. The scrap is decreased by huge amount. As, in the full bumper, we could only produce 1 fender per blank, whereas it is feasible to produce 2 fenders per blank in case of half bumper type which leads to scrap management.
Manufacturing
The manufacturing process includes the following steps: first, unfolding and shearing are performed on a plate, wherein a suitable cold roll specification is first chosen, a cold roll is unfolded, and subsequently it is sheared to a corresponding size in accordance with production material specifications; second, oil pressing and punching are performed, wherein the iron plate is first extended, followed by side shearing and punching along with folding and shaping and finally reshaping is done. Thirdly, small initial parts of the fender are machined, wherein first the iron plate is punched to get an outer contour blank, followed by shaping and punching and fourth installation and welding of a metal plate are carried out. The technique for making a car fender is straightforward and very productive; as the fender's body and its smaller components may be machined independently, waiting times are reduced and production efficiency is increased.
Mountings
There are generally 5 mountings on a front fender -
1.Body 2. A-Pillar 3. Sill 4. Cowl 5. Drip
Bumper Mounting: On the bumper mounting, the bumper will be mounted to the fender.
A-Pillar Mounting: This type of mounting is between the fender and A-pillar.
Sill Mounting: Sill mounting is the on the bottom side mounting of the fender, where it mounted on sill of car.
Drip Mounting: The engine compartment is mounted with help of fasteners in drip mounting. The design considerations are from the A-pillar mountings, there should be 200mm clearance for the cowl (wiper motor) mounting area. From the front side of the front fender, there should be 150mm clearance for the headlamp housing unit. The remaining area is used to design drip mounting which can be seen in the above figure.
Baffle Mounting: The wheel arch surface will be mounted with the baffle with push pin mechanism.
Dart: It is a type of support given to large mountings to increase the strength of the part.
I am unable to paste the pictures here. Sorry for inconvinience. I have attached my word file with pictures in the zip folder. Kindly have a look.