Fender Design Challenge
FENDER DESIGN-SHEET METAL
Its primary purpose is to prevent sand, mud, rocks, liquids, and other road spray from being thrown into the air by the rotating tire. Some are metallic, while others are high-quality plastic builds, such as ABS. The fender is an essential part of the car, playing a role in protecting the body.
FULL BUMPER
This type of fender is used in olden days, it is no more in use due to its heavyweight of the structure and consumes more raw material in manufacturing.
HALF BUMPER
Half Bumper Type fenders are widely used now, due to its mini size and the scrap or wastage is less compared to the full bumper type.
Manufacturing process
The manufacturing of the fender majorly involves these operations.
1.Embossing
2.Bending
3.Cutting and Blanking
Embossing
Embossing is a metal forming process for producing raised or sunken designs or relief in sheet material using matched male and female roller dies, theoretically with no change in metal thickness, or by passing sheet or a strip of metal between rolls of the desired pattern.
Bending
Metal bending is a process by which metal can be deformed when applying force to the subject, which causes it to bend at an angle and form the anticipated shape, which often results in it being in a ‘V’ or a ‘U’ shape. This is done through the application of force on a workpiece. The force on the work piece can be mechanical, pneumatic or hydraulic.
Cutting and Blanking
Cutting processes are those in which a piece of sheet metal is separated by applying a great enough shearing force to cause the material to fail.
Blanking is a steel manufacturing process in which a flat, geometric shape is created by feeding a coil of sheet metal into a press and die. In this process, the blank is punched out from the large metal sheet.
Fender is mounted basically on 5 important regions. They are
1. Drip Area
2. A-Pillar Mounting Area
3. Sill Mounting Area
4. Bumper Mounting Area
5. Baffle Mounting Area
Design Considerations
1. Blend Radius = [Min] 3mm + thickness
2. Circular Cut out = [Min] 5mm flat surface around the circular cut out. Refer Sill Mounting Area below.
3. No sharp corners
BUMPER MOUNTING AREA
The bumper mounting region is located beneath the bumper. The fender gets attached before the installation of the bumper. After fixing the fender with fasteners the bumper will cover the bumper mounting.
SILL MOUNTING AREA
The area at which the bottom of the fender gets connected to the floor near the bottom edge of the door. The Embossed sill mounting of the fender is attached with the fasteners.
DRIP AREA_ACCORDING TO MASTER SECTION
The area at which the fender gets attached to the engine housing through fasteners. It is the major mounting for the fender. Mountings at the drip area are designed leaving a clearance of 200mm from the back of the fender for the cowl setup. And clearance of 150mm from the front of the fender for a headlamp housing unit.
Spring Back Effect:
Springback is the amount of elastic distortion a material has to go through before it becomes permanently deformed, or formed.
Springback occurs in all formed or bent-up parts on release of forming pressure and withdrawal of the punch.
The material, previously held in a predetermined arrangement by the influence of these two elements, is suddenly free from outside restrictions and immediately makes an attempt to return to its original shape and form.
To limit the effect of spring back effect, Darts are used in Drip Area Mountings as shown above in the image. Darts are also used to strengthen the component. Darts are provided at the bends to stiffen the sheet metal at that region.
A-PILLAR MOUNTING AREA
This Mounting region is located near the cowl of the vehicle where the fender is fastened with the bottom edge of the windshield. This mounting is covered with the side rear-view mirror.
BAFFEL MOUNTING AREA
In this region, the baffle gets installed to the fender with the help of clips which holds the baffle with the fender along the wheel arch.
Baffel helps to improve NVH factor in Automobile.
FENDER OUTUPUT
Improvement:
SIDE INDICATOR
