Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

Introduction:

A fender is the curved portion of the car’s body that sits over and houses the wheels. The purpose of a fender is pretty simple. Its purpose is to keep mud, rocks, and other road debris from being thrown around by the tires. In other words, the fender is a housing for the wheels that keeps road debris contained. If there was nothing covering the wheels, all kinds of debris would be kicked up by the rotating tires.

The fender not only protects your car from sustaining damage from road debris but it prevents this debris from being thrown up at other vehicles on the road. This is why vehicles with large, oversized tires are often required by law to install fender flares.

Types of Fender?

1) Full Bumper Type

2) Half Bumper Type

Aim: To decide whether the given design passes the European standards or not.

Given Design:

European Regulations Requirement:

1. Take the outline of the wheel and the fender.
2. Make the centre of the wheel circle.
3. Draw horizontal and vertical perpendicular axes from the centre of the wheel circle.
4. Draw lines at 30 degrees and 50 degrees from the centre.
5. Make a point on the fender line at 150mm from the horizontal.
6. Extend a line to this point from the centre.
7. Then make a line that is exactly between the 50-degree line and the line made on the 150mm point.

• Measure the distances between the points on the wheel circle and fender curve. All of these should be greater than 10mm to satisfy the European regs.
• Secondly, the horizontal distances from SA, SB, and SC points to the fender curve should be at least 5mm.
• Check whether the design passes these conditions and conclude whether it can pass the European Regulations Requirement.

Challenge:

Sketch has been made.

Now let us measure the distances between the points at the 5 sections.

SA-SA

25.992 mm > 10 mm

SB-SB

43.642 mm > 10 mm

SC-SC

38.36 mm > 10 mm

SD-SD

41.024 mm > 10 mm

SE-SE

43.786 mm > 10 mm

Now to find the horizontal distance between the wheel and the fender. This distance should be at least 5mm from SA point, SB point, and SC point.

Project the made sketch onto the plane of the wheel.

Distance between SA point and fender outer curve = 9.949 mm (pass)

Distance between SB point and fender outer curve = 10 mm (pass)

Distance between SC point and fender outer curve = 0.114 mm (fail)

Table:

Conclusion:

The given design satisfies all European standards but one, i.e. the distance from SC point to the fender curve (which is just 0.114 mm), which is way below the recommended 5 mm minimum distance. Therefore, this fender cannot pass the European standards. The design should be reverted back to the class A designer telling him to modify the design and increase the gap there.