Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

FENDER WHEEL ARCH CALCULATION:

AIM:

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

OBJECTIVE:

• To calculate the clearance (L) at sections of SA-SA, SB-SB, SC-SC, SD-SD and SE-SE as per the European Regulations Requirement and tabulate them.
• To measure the wheel guard requirement, the value of ‘a’ from a line 30 degree forward and 50-degree rearward from the central vertical axis of axis of wheel.

WHEEL ARCH:

• It is a curved part of the fender positioned right above the wheel.
• The wheel arch is designed such that it protects both the pedestrian and car cabin from mud, sand, rocks and other road spray.
• Different countries have different wheel arch regulations in place, and the wheel arch design has to comply with them to be allowed to usable in that country.
• 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.

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.
• A sketch is created on the new datum plane which is created.
• Horizontal line is drawn across the centre of the wheel axis.
• A perpendicular line in 90 degree is drawn from the centre of the wheel axis which is known as SA.
• Two lines of SB and SC are drawn at 30° forward from the SA and 50° rearward of SA respectively.
• A point is created at 150mm vertically above the horizontal line which coincides with the fender edge.
• A line SE is created from the centre axis of the wheel through the point which is created at 150mm.
• A midpoint is created between the SC and SE lines. Then a line SD from centre axis of the wheel is drawn through the midpoint which is created between the SC and SE.

CONCLUSION:

From the above results, we can conclude that the Fender does not pass the European Regulations, as the minimum clearance ‘L’ between the Fender wheel arch and wheel for vehicle should be 10mm and this design does not meet the European Regulation requirements.