Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

Aim: To calculate the wheel arch radius for a given Front fender and to check it is design according to the European standards.

Wheel Arch:

The wheel arch is the semicircular part positioned above the wheel of a vehicle. The most important body change was that the front wheel arch was cut higher into the fender. Corrosion had occurred around the splash plate at the back of the wheel arch. The car has big, high-definition headlights that extend to the wheel arch.

European standard:

The above shown image Provide information about the distance of the fender to the wheel arch. The main purpose to maintain the distance(L) is to safe guard the pedestrian from the chipping action done during the vehicle movement.

During the motion the car tyre tends to throw particles present on the road like sand and other plastic or the glass particles in to air which may create some harmful environment to the pedestrian and cause problem to them.

European standards:

 The above image provides information to calculate the clearance distance(L), according to the European standards the L should be 10mm at Each and every mentioned point.

Mentioned Points (SB, SA, SC, SD, SE)

Japan standard:

US Standard:

Procedure needs to follow:

Generate a datum plane which is tangent to wheel and then draw Axis lines (X &Y) with respect to the origin on the Plane center.

Then draw the line SB from the origin with 30⁰ from the horizontal axis line up to Fender wheel arch.SA line the vertical axis line.

Similarly draw line SC from the origin with 50⁰ from the horizontal axis line up to Fender wheel arch.

Draw SE line which is 150 mm above from the Horizontal line. SD line should be middle to the SC and SE line.

 Above Explained each and every point should have minimum distance of 10mm from the wheel arch.

The points and the fender curve are projected on the plane by using projected curve.

The Clearance distance is get calculated by using measure distance command available in NX CAD. The point SB meats the requirement by maintaining the Clearance distance(L) up to 10mm.

But the points SA, SC, SD, SE are failed to meet the clearance distance (L) with Fender.

The values of remaining points are:

 SA = 9.9490mm

SC = 0.11mm

SD = 2.7645mm

SE = 5.4mm

Conclusion:

Only the Lines SB meet the safety requirement, which is greater than the 10mm from the outer fender

 The other lines SA, SC, SD, SE did not follow the clearance distance applied by the European standard authorities so the design has to modified till to meet the clearance value to be 10mm or more than that.