Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

Challenge - Calculate the Wheel Arch gap at required points and check whether the car passes the European standard.

• Fender :

Wheel Arch is the semi-circular part of the fender located above the wheel of the vehicle. The design of the wheel arch of the fender should be shield wheels and protect both engine compartment and pedestarians from the projection of water, mud and stones. The wheel arch area of the fender is usually designed as cover over the tyre along its perimeter to stop any stones or debris, dirt, sand, snow etc. from getting thrown into the vehicle or the BIW area as well as outside the vehicle and onto other vehicles or pedestarians on the road. For the vehicle, Different countries have different wheel arch regulations in place the wheel arch of fenders must be compliant with the standards and regulations set by respective countries. and the wheel arch design has to comply with them to be deemed usable in that country.

The European rules requires a pre-determined clearance of minimum 10mm distance, which is to to be maintained b/w the fender and respective tyre at particular points, along the tyre profile as shown below:

Wheel Arch:

For avoiding design alterations of the same vehicle to get the different regulations parameters are taken into consideration for design purpose.

Fender Wheel Arch Regulations :

Japan Regulations :

• The clearance "L" for tire, hub, cap and fender is to be measured within area K and create clearance check chart to validate.
• The value of L should be greater than 5mm at all points.

Wheel guard requirement : The value of "a" should be more than 5mm at line 30° anticlockwise and 50° clockwise from the central vertical axis of the wheel.

European Regulations :

• The clearance "L" should be measured at defined sections SA, SB, SC, SD and SE and create clearance check chart to validate.
• At all the five sections the value of L should be greater than 10mm to qualify the European Regulations.
• Wheel guard requirement : The value of "a" should be more than 5mm at line 30° anticlockwise and 50° clockwise from the central vertical axis of the wheel.

US Regulations :

• Clearance "L" is to be checked at all positions from -100° to 100° and create clearance check chart to validate.
• The value of L should be greater than 5mm to qualify the US regulations.
• Wheel guard requirement : The value of "a" should be more than 5mm at line 30° anticlockwise and 50° clockwise from the central vertical axis of the wheel.

Calculations of wheel Arch area - European Regulations

For calculation of clearance between wheel Arch and wheel we have to create a sketch on the outer most face of the wheel or Tyre and the procedure as follows.

From the given part file, we need to open in the NX cad and from the part file they give the fender and the wheel. So, now we need to check for the European regulations standard. Now we need to create the Datum plane at the outer most face of the wheel as shown in figure.

After that in that plane we sketch the lines and the give the required angle from the reference of the European standard drawing by using the Rapid dimension as shown in figure.

And using the text give the proper name to the lines and the dimensions are set as per the European standard as shown in the figure.

Then we need to measure the distance from the outer most wheel to the outer most wheel arch for that we add the some points on the face and the angle line as shown in figure.

And now using the analysis tab in the NX Cad in that click simple distance to measure the required distances as the European standard as shown in figure. from the SB line the clearence distance we measure is 43.52mm and the 50degree SC line the clearance distance is 38.30mm as shown in figure.

standards :

• "a" should be more than 5mm at line 30degree forward and 50degree.
• "L" should be greater than 10mm

From the measuing for clearence are given below

for "a" values

SB = 43.63 mm

SC = 38.36 mm

for "L" values

SB-SB = +15.0 mm

SA-SA = + 14.95 mm

SC-SC = 4.9 mm

SD-SD = 2.13 mm

SE-SE = -0.94 mm

And the results are tabulated which is given below,

Conclusion :

From the above results we can conclude that the Fender does not pass the European Regulations as the minimum clearance between the fender arch wheel to the outer most wheel is 10 mm and this design does not meet the this minimum clearance so this fender design is fail for the European Regulation standard.