Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

1)in this challege, we have to calculate the wheel arch gap between fender and wheel and check weather it should follow the European standard.

Fender is the American English term for the part of an automobile, motorcycle or other vehicle body that frames a wheel well (the fender underside). Its primary purpose is to prevent sand, mud, rocks, liquids, and other road spray from being thrown into the air by the rotating tire. Fenders are typically rigid and can be damaged by contact with the road surface.

Sticky materials, such as mud, may adhere to the smooth outer tire surface, while smooth loose objects, such as stones, can become temporarily embedded in the tread grooves as the tire rolls over the ground. These materials can be ejected from the surface of the tire at high velocity as the tire imparts kinetic energy to the attached objects. For a vehicle moving forward, the top of the tire is rotating upward and forward, and can throw objects into the air at other vehicles or pedestrians in front of the vehicle.

Wheel arches are arch-shaped cavities in the body of a vehicle that house the wheels. They have two important functions. Firstly, they serve for the safety of pedestrians and other cars because the wheel is situated in the body of a vehicle. Secondly, when moving, the wheel arches divert the flow of air over the arches, increasing grip by pushing the car down towards the road and preventing the airflow from entering bodywork where it would become trapped, slowing the car down and significantly reducing fuel-efficiency

For avoiding design alterations of the same vehicle to meet the different regulations in different countries, the maximum values of the concerned regulation 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 positions
• Wheel guard requirement: The value of ‘a’ should be more than 5mm at line 30° forward and 50° rearwards from the central vertical axis of the wheel

European Regulations

• The Clearance ‘L’ should be measured at sections SA-SA, SB-SB, SC-SC, SD-SD and SE-SE and create clearance check chart to validate
• At all the five sections the value of L should be greater than 10mm to satisfy the European Regulations
• Wheel guard requirement: The value of ‘a’ should be more than 5mm at line 30° forward and 50° rearwards 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 satisfy the regulations
• Wheel guard requirement: The value of ‘a’ should be more than 5mm at line 30° forward and 50° rearwards from the central vertical axis of the wheel

Calculation of wheel arch area according to 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. The procedure of which is given below.

• A Datum Plane is created at the outermost face of the wheel
• The sketch is created on the new Datum Plane
• A Horizontal line is drawn across the centre of the wheel
• A perpendicular line SA is dropped at the centre of the wheel
• Two lines SB and SC are created at 30° forward of SA and 50° rearward of SA respectively
• A point is created 150mm vertically above the centre line
• A line SE is drawn from the wheel centre and passes from the point created
• Another line SD is drawn from the centre of the wheel and in the middle of lines SC and SE

we need deaw the poper sketch according standard.

we have to check the minium distace L at designated 5 points

points are SA-SA, SB-SB, SC-SC, SD-SD and SE-SE,

Distance should be greater than or equal to 10mm

Gap1: 10.00mm (Inward) - Passed

Gap 2: 9.9489mm(Inward) - failed

Gap 3: 0mm(outward) - failed

Gap 4: 0mm(outward) -failed

Gap 5: 2.0777mm(outward) -failed

we can able to conclude from above the images that fender does not pass the europian standard and we cant able to manufacture the fender.