Fatigue life of a bus structure in normal operation and in accelerated testing on special tracks

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, the Research and Testing Institute in Pilsen has been developing a methodology of computational and experimental investigation of strength and fatigue life of bodies of road vehicles for mass passenger transport. The methodology includes multibody dynamic simulations, strength FEM calculations, test bench tests, stress measurements during vehicle prototype operation, evaluation of measured data and fatigue life calculations. One co-operating bus manufacturer plans to include accelerated fatigue tests on special testing grounds into this procedure. In real urban traffic and on the test circuit extensive stress measurements on a number of structural nodes and components has been carried out and analysed. In collaboration with the Regional Technological Institute, which is the research center of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of West Bohemia, the fatigue life was calculated for the critical nodes and components of the different parts of the bus. Based on these calculations, it was possible to assess the development potential and problem of planning accelerated tests on the testing polygon.