OPTIMIZATION STUDY ON TRAILER ARM CHASSIS BY FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

Chassis is the important part of an automobile. It supports the body and different parts of an automobile. Chassis consists of engine, brakes, power train, steering system and wheels mounted on a frame. Ƭhe frame is the main part of the chassis on which remaining parts of chassis are placed. Ƭhe chassis should be rigid enough to withstand the twist, shock, stresses, vibrations and bending moments to which it is subjected while vehicle is moving on road. Ƭhe trailer arm chassis frame has to carry and sustain the heavy loads which are applied on it. Hence it is very important to design and analysis of the trailer arm chassis frame. Ƭhe design of trailer arm chassis is carried out by taking the base model structure of chassis as a standard. The optimization technique to redesign Chassis (Frame) of a trailer is carried out here. The trailer had dimensional limits and must be able to reduce the overall size and shape and still lift the same amount of load. Different load cases with given boundary conditions & loadings are used. Ƭo improve the performance of the chassis finite element analysis is carried for various alternatives. Ƭhe analysis is performed by varying the thickness, shape and material to get the best possible design of the chassis. Static analysis is carried out for both basic and modified designs to determine the high stress regions, maximum displacement, and normal stress at critical positions of the chassis. Normal modal analysis for base model is carried out to find the first natural frequency. Normal modal analysis is carried out for all modified designs to improve the first natural frequency of the chassis in order to avoid the resonance. The whole challenging task, starting with pre processing, analysis and post processing is completed using Altair’s HyperMesh, Abaqus and HyperView FE package.