Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

Aim:

To calculate the Wheel Arch gap at required points and check whether the car passes the European standard.

Input Given:

The Fender wheel arch and wheel assembly.

Fender:

Fender is an part the Body which primary purpose is to prevent sand, mud particles, rocks which is carried out and thrown in a direction due to the kinetic energy developed by the tires. Its basic purpose is to prevent any injuries to pedestrians and contain motion of particles to engine cabin.

Two types of fender

Full bumper

Half bumper

Half bumper type is commonly used now due to material saving and weight saving which is an important factor for fuel economy.

Mounting Points :

The fender is mainly mounted in following ,

• Body
• A pilllar
• Cowl
• sill
• Drip

The mounting can be done using fastners as these parts would not be visible outside.

Regarding the European standard of fender design.

The main aim of fender is to protect engine cabin and pedestrian safety, if the moving vehicle throws the stone or some foreign particle,

it might hit a pedestrian and cause injury. To avoid this there are various regulation designed that th gap between wheel arch and edge of wheel should be of minimum 5mm as per European regulation.

That is , based on the above image, the gap between the wheel edge and various points SA, SB,SC,SD,SE Should have a gap of minimum 5mm.

1) From the center of the wheel a vertical line is drawn for SB point, a datum is considered on the max edge of wheel and being sketched.

2) Then the new line is formed 30Deg from the SB point called as SA point.

3) The third point is created from the same center with reference of 50deg from SA called SC

4) For creating SE , a vertical line of 150mm is drawn from the point to the intersection point on fender curve, from there the line is drawn to the wheel center. while this point is called SE.

5) SD Point is created between SC and SE.

Now the fender curve is projected and the intersection point is created at various angles.

Now the intersection points are projected to the fender arch, so it creates a two horizontal points between the fender and wheel plan.

The gap between these two points is measured and if its within spec of 10mm , it passes the european regulation.

Also attached the measurement point pics for reference.

SA

SB

SC

SD

SE

Result:

For European regulation the above design is failed at 3 points and only two points are passed, te design has to improved.