Design of Wheel Arch

Introduction of Wheel Arch:

The design of the wheel arch of a fender should be such that it must have shield wheels and protect both passengers compartment and pedestrians from the projection of Water, Mud, and Stones.

Wheel Arch is the Semi-Circular part of the fender positioned above the wheel of the vehicle.

For the vehicle to has its use permit in different countries the wheel arch of enders must be compliant with the standards and regulations set by the respective countries.

The wheel Arch area of the fender is usually designed as a cover or sheild over the tyre along its perimeter to stop any debris or stones, dirt, sand, snow etc. from getting thrown into the vehicle/ BIW area as well as outside the vehicle and onto other vehicles or pedestrians on the road. For the vehicle to has its use permit in different countries, the wheel arch of fenders must be compliant with the standards and regulations set by the respective countries.

The European regulation requires a pre determined clearance or a minimum distance of 10mm. to be maintained between the Fender (Front Quarter Panel) and the respective tyre at particular points(5 points/Sections to be exact) along the tyre profile as shown below:

EUROPEAN REGULATION REQUIREMENT FOR WHEEL ARC:-

The measure CL L at sections SA-SA SB-SB SC-SC SD-SD SE-SE and produce CL check chart to

validate.

• At all five sections the CL L value should be greater than 10 mm to satisfy the European regulations.
• Wheel guard requirement: The value of 'L' shall be more than 5 mm at a line 30* forward and 50* rearward from the central vertical axis of axis of wheel.

The sketch is drawn on the wheel face as per the European standards provided and projected on the wheel arch at sections SA, SB, SC, SD and SE to measure "L", "a" and wheel arch area.

• A horizontal and vertical Axis is drawn from the centre of the wheel.
• The vertical axis intersection point is labelled as SA.
• Similar references are drawn at 30 degree to the left and 50 degree to the right of the section SA and are named SB and SC respectively.
• A line of 150mm is drawn perpendicular to the horizontal axis and the normal from that point on the fender gives us SE.
• The midpoint of the arc cut by the sections SC and SE results in a new section SD.
• The value of 'L' at each section and the value of 'a' are found out to determine whether the fender satisfies the European standards as shown below.

The clearance "L" as shown in the above fig at all the five sections SA-SA, SB-SB, SC-SC, SD-SD and SE-SE should be greater than 10 mm.

At SB Section we got 10mm

&

At SA Section we got 9.99mm

also

AT Section SC we got 0.1139mm

after that

At Section SD we got 2.88mm

finally

At Section SE we got 5.975mm

Hence we conclude that since the clearance is not matching with the required one as per euporean standards ,So this design will not pass the Euporean Standards.