Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge
Aim:
Calculate the Wheel Arch gap at required points and check whether the car passes the European standard.
Introduction:
Wheel Arch is the semi-circular part of the fender positioned above the wheel of the vehicle. The design of Wheel arch of a fender should be such that it must shield wheels and protect both passengers' compartment and pedestrians from projection of water, mud and stones. 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.
Sectional modulus optimization of hood:
Sectional Modulus is the ratio of moment of inertia and distance between the neutral axis and extreme end.It gives the idea of how much the material is resistant to bend/ deformation. As the moment of inertia increases the sectional modulus increases and hence more is the resistant to the bend. Change is made in the design to improve the sectional modulus by varying the Y. For this emboss were given to reduce the distance between the inner and outer panel, as the distance decreases the sectional modulus increases.
Below are the images of initial and final moment of inertia.
IJISET - International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology, Vol. 7 Issue 3, March 2020
ISSN (Online) 2348 – 7968 | Impact Factor (2019) – 6.248. The inertia is increased, which increases the sectional modulus of the hood panel. This makes the hood more resistive towards the bend. Main purpose of this analysis was to get the inertia of the hood and study of sectional modulus and improve it to withstand more loads.
Wheel Arc Verification Using European Standards:
Wheel Arc is the part of fender and semicircular part positioned above the wheel. It protects the wheel from unwanted particles and entering of those particles into the engine compartment and even provides safety for pedestrian. Requirements have been proposed by vehicle and road safety community to the minimum requirement of wheel arc distance
from the wheel for safety.
Rules –
Measure of CL L is done on sections SA, SB , SC, SD, SE.
At all sections the value of CL L should be greater that 10mm.
Wheel guard requirement : The value of a shall be more that 5mm at 300 forward and 500 rearward from the central axis of wheel.
The measured value images:>
Section Clearance Measured(mm) Comments
SA- 10 Pass & SB- 10 Pass:
Negative sign indicates that the wheel arc is behind the wheel.
All the section don't have the CL L value at least 10mm, only SA and SB is seen to have value 10mm.
Therefore the wheel arch does not satisfy the requirements as per the European standards. So the styling team needs to work at the section of SC, SD, and SE. For safety purpose the wheel arc should be outside the wheel and the value greater that 10mm and the SD, SE part should come outside the wheel.
Conclusion:
From the above results, we can conclude that the given fender does not pass the European standards for wheel arch area. In this work, the major BIW components were designed using necessary design standards and consideration with CATIA software. Design of Hood involved design of inner panel with necessary reinforcements and embosses and hemmed with outer panel. Hemming involves joining of two surfaces and hemming adhesives are widely used to give improved strength, part stiffness, crash performance and corrosion protection. Mounting points of fender were designed. Roof design involved design of bow roofs and embosses on outer roof panel, heat distortion test was performed to check the design optimization. Tail gate design involved design of inner panel and hemming with outer panel. Optimization is carried out to get a safe design and to produce the part with optimal cost. It provides a unique design solution and requires less space with with compact dimension. To further reduce the cost of production and to get optimal design there is a scope for further study in optimization of design.