Fender Design - Wheel Arch Challenge
Introduction
The design of the Wheel arch of a fender should be in a proper manner that it must shield wheels and protect both passengers compartments and pedestrians from the projection of water, mud and stones. the wheel arch of the fenders must comply with the standards and regulations set by the respective countries. the measurements of the wheel arch of the fender are decided according to one of the three standers currently used, which are Japanese, EUROPE and USA REGULATIONS.
FROM these 3 regulations we took the EUROPEAN regulation for the designing of our wheel arch of the fender.
PROCEDURE
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.
According to the EUROPEAN Standard, the value of the L ( the distance between the end of the side face of the tyre profile and the projected end of the wheel arc of the fender ) should have a minimum of 10 mm .otherwise the fender is failed to meet the requirements.
- Sketching Procedure
made a datum plane with respect to the end face edge of the tyre profile. after that created all the SA, SB, SC, SD and SE as shown in the above figure. projected the edge curve of the fender wheel arch using the project curve tool and made an intersecting point with the all as, sb, sc, sd and se lines. and projected it to the edge of the wheel arch. and measured all the gaps between them.
We can see that only one point (SB) meets the required gap between the tyre and the fender. remain all the points show the gap value lesser than the minimum.
| POINTS | REGULATION MIN VALUE | MEASURED VALUE |
| SA | 10 | 9.9490 |
| SB | 10 | 10 |
| SC | 10 | .1139 |
| SD | 10 | -2.8875 |
| SE | 10 | -5.9973 |
From the table, we can say that all the points fail to meet the required gap distance except point SB.
why did I put the negative value on the SD and SE points, ie the wheel arch is going inside rather than going straight
it clearly shows that the wheel is exposed to the outside. this will make pretty good damage to the vehicle as well as to the side walkers.
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.