Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge

AIM - Explain about the different fender regulations and to measure and tabulate them.

Fig – Given File

Theory - Fender is the American English term for the part of an automobile, motorcycle or other vehicle body that frames a wheel well (the fender underside). Its primary purpose is to prevent sand, mud, rocks, liquids, and other road spray from being thrown into the air by the rotating tire. Fenders are typically rigid and can be damaged by contact with the road surface.

Fig – Fender Image

Fig – Front and Rear Fender

Sticky materials, such as mud, may adhere to the smooth outer tire surface, while smooth loose objects, such as stones, can become temporarily embedded in the tread grooves as the tire rolls over the ground. These materials can be ejected from the surface of the tire at high velocity as the tire imparts kinetic energy to the attached objects. For a vehicle moving forward, the top of the tire is rotating upward and forward, and can throw objects into the air at other vehicles or pedestrians in front of the vehicle.

TYPES OF FENDER:

The type of fender is based upon the area covered i.e., full fender type and half fender type.

1. FULL FENDER TYPE: Full fender type is traditional type of fender where more material consumption is observed. This type is used in old design of automobiles where it increases the overall weight and thus reduces performance. The maintenance also relatively more due to more surface.
2. HALF FENDER TYPE: Half fender type is modern design where less material consumption is observed, so productivity increases by reducing size of blank and thus providing more performance. The maintenance also relatively low compared to full bumper type.

Wheel Arch Area :

Fig - Wheel Arch Area

• The wheel arch is the semicircular part positioned above the wheel of a vehicle. It is an integrated part of a fender assembly. The wheel arch area have some standard specification to measure the clearance between the tire and fender. If the tire lies outside the fender, it does more chipping cause a damage to pedestrian and also to car. To have a pedestrian safety in mind, we need to position the tire inside the fender. For that we have certain standard regulations which are as follows:
  

European regulation

The value will be more than 10mm at 30 degree at forward and 50 degree at line above150 mm.

Fig – European Regulations For Fender Design

• US Regulation

The value will be more than 5mm at line 30 degree forward and 50 degree central vertical axis.

Fig – US regulations For fender design

Japan Regulation

The value will be more than 5mm at 30 degree at forward and 50 degree at the central vertical line.

Fig – Japan Regulations For fender design

Here the main objective of the challenge is to test whether the give tire and fender is eligible to qualify with European regulations of Fender design or not.

STEPS FOLLOWED IN CREATING THE SKETCH REQUIREMENT FOR EUROPEAN STANDARDS:

1. A sketch is created on the datum plane which is at the outer most portion of the wheel.
2. Create the intersection points on the line which are intersecting at the fender outermost portion.
3. Project those points on to the fender part.
4. Measure the distance between sketch intersection points and the project point. Then we get each section.

Section	Clearance	Result
SA	9.94 < 10	Fail
SB	10 >10	Pass
SC	0.11 < 10	Fail
SD	2.9 < 10	Fail
SE	6.0 < 10	Fail

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 and pedestrian safety is 10mm and this design does not meet the requirement.