Abstract
The steering arm has recently been frequently broken in a kind of mining truck with Macpherson suspension. To accelerate replacing the broken parts and minimize the economic cost, a fast calculation method for improving the steering arm is proposed in this paper. In this method, the forces on the steering arm are calculated by quasi-static analysis under a low vehicle velocity. Dynamic characteristics of the tire and road are partly included by considering the ranges of the rolling resistance coefficient and friction coefficient from the empirical values, which determines the torque on the steering arm under extreme conditions. The rigid–flexible coupling model for the left steering mechanism in ANSYS Workbench is established and solved to obtain the distribution stress on the steering arm under extreme conditions. Then, the reliability of the simulation results based on this fast calculation method is verified by the experiment. After determining an improvement scheme considering the economic and time cost, the satisfactory strength is obtained. The results illustrate that the strength of the improved steering arm has nearly doubled. Finally, the effectiveness of the improved steering arm is demonstrated by the users’ feedback after it is manufactured, installed, and used.
Highlights
Due to its simpler structure and lower manufacture/service cost, Macpherson suspension with the functions of vibration isolation and steering has been widely used in light mining trucks [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The torque in the rigid–flexible coupling model is set to 11.345 kN·m—
MPa, mum principal and 2 are about190. It can be seen the stress distribution simulated by finite element analysis (FEA) are basically the same with the experiment on test points 1 and 2, by comparing the maximum principal stresses from the test and the simulation
Summary
Due to its simpler structure and lower manufacture/service cost, Macpherson suspension with the functions of vibration isolation and steering has been widely used in light mining trucks [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Due to the complex characteristics of key parts, road surfaces, and tires, there are many design methods for the strength design, fatigue test, and life prediction of the steering arm according to the theoretical forces or accelerations [16,17,18,19] These methods did not consider the features of the vehicle, arrangement of each structure, and the assembly which may cause kinematic interference, and the obtained results are often limited. The complete design method is beneficial to a company in the long run, but a fast and effective design will be the engineers’ emphasis in the short term for the problem that only a few parts are broken in the vehicles In this current stage, it is urgent to present a fast calculation method which can partly consider the characteristics of the road and tire for improving the steering arm.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
