Design, Analysis and Optimization of Heavy Vehicle Chassis Using Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The most prominent challenge in today’s vehicle industry is how to cope with the accretive demand for ever higher performance, longer life, safety and lower weight of components so that fuel economy requirements can be achieved at realistic cost levels. Chassis of a truck is the skeleton for a vehicle providing structural strength and mounting points for other components. In this study, a truck ladder chassis was 3D- modelled using Computer Aided Designed (CAD) method via CATIA^TM software. Finite Element Analyses (FEA) were conducted on the truck ladder chassis by varying materials such as AISI 1006 Structural Steel and ASTM Class 30 Cast Iron using ANSYS software. The analyses were executed by considering various materials, number of wheels, type of profiles, and supports used. The optimum levels of the control factors for minimizing the deformation using S/N rates were determined for a wheel size of 6x4, I profile, and supports used. The optimization was finally carried out using Taguchi method in the Minitab software.

Keywords: Vehicle Ladder Chassis, Computer Aided Design, FEA, Taguchi method.