Optimal Design of Camber Link Component for Light Weight Automobile Using CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)

摘要

Increasing the fuel economy has been an inevitable issue for the development of new cars, and one of the important measures to improve the fuel economy is to decrease the vehicle weight. In this study, savings in weight using lightweight materials such as aluminum alloy can lead to increase fuel economy and reduction in air pollution. In order to obtain this goal, the researches about lighter and stronger link components have been studied without sacrificing safety. Aluminum alloy material has a weak point compared to the steel material in strength for life cycle. In this study, in order to design a lighter and more reliable chassis component using aluminum material as compared with existing steel chassis components, a new camber link shape was suggested by adding vertical ribs to an existing I-beam type link and to investigate how each design parameter makes an effect on the reliability and component weight. The computer aided engineering (CAE) was performed with 9 design parameters and 2 levels. Through the analysis of variance, 3 parameters which were the most influential one on weight were selected. Through these results, the weight of the aluminum camber link was 59% that of the steel link. The stiffness of the optimized aluminum camber link under all loads was more than 100% that of the steel link.