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(1) What were the design parameters around which the front knuckle was designed?

The font knuckle needs to mount on itself a hub and needs to have ball joint and tie rod mounting points on it. In addition, a knuckle needs to be strong enough to withstand the loads induced on it during bumps, braking and cornering and yet needs to be light to keep the unsprung mass as low as possible. Low unsprung mass means low inertia of the components that move up and down with the wheel. This allows the wheels to follow the surface undulations properly. Another factor in knuckle design is the relative position of the ball joints. The locations of the upper and lower ball joints and tie rod mounting point were obtained by the suspension team from Suspension Analyzer. What was needed to be done now was to join the three points to a structure rigid enough to take the loads mentioned in next paragraph. To keep the weight of the front knuckles as low as possible without compromising on strength, it is advisable to machine them out of solid aluminium using CNC. This process, although being highly efficient and fast, is very expensive. So it was decided that front knuckle would be made by welding together 5mm sheets of mild steel to form a structure that would meet both the strength and weight requirements from a front knuckle. Since a smaller part of the vehicles weight rests on the front suspension, front knuckle can be considerably lighter. The biggest load that a front knuckle is likely is the brake force being acted at the points where the brake calliper is mounted on the knuckle. This force is generated as the calliper rubs against the brake rotor and tries to move with it due to high friction hence exerting force at the calliper mounting points. Since front brakes see a higher brake forces due to mass transfer, the force on calliper mounting points is not so pronounced on the rear upright. The brake force was calculated by the brakes team. This load was directly applied on the calliper mounting points. Another force that acts on the front knuckle is the vertical bump load. As the wheel moves over a bump, it forces the wheel hub which in turn forces the knuckle on which it is mounted in upward direction. This force can be calculated but since we had done a vehicle simulation on CarSim earlier, we obtained the force from there. It was assumed that the maximum height of the bump that the vehicle is likely to pass over on a race track in a worst case scenario is 20mm given that a race track surface is usually smooth and free from bumps. This gave a force of 4000N. Also, as brakes are applied, the chassis wants to keep moving in forward direction but the wheels want to slow down. This pulls the knuckle shaft (stub axle) in rearward direction. The total brake force at front was divided by two to obtain the force at one wheel. This force was applied at the knuckle shaft in backward direction. Another minor load that acts on the knuckle is the point where the tie rod is mounted on the knuckle. A force of 1000N was applied on this point. An educated guess says that this point is not going to see a force greater than 1000N. As for the fixtures, since it is the wishbones that attach the knuckle to the chassis, the ball joints of the knuckle were fixed. Static structural analyses were done on the knuckle to find the stress induced on it due to the aforementioned loads. After that a fatigue analysis was done to find out the number of times the knuckle can take such loads.

Internal structure of the knuckle Time consuming to fabricate but many times cheap, equal in strength and easy and straightforward to construct using nothing but 5mm sheets of mild steel. The knuckle weighs just over 1700grams which is light enough given the size of the ball joints. (2) Why is the distance between the ball joints so large? The distance between the ball joints affects many things in suspension design like toe variance, kpi etc. The distance between ball joints depends on the angle of wishbones with each other and the track width. The roll centre of the vehicle has to be kept near the centre of gravity of vehicle. This is the major parameter that decided that distance between the ball joints. Care was taken to keep toe change within reasonable limits. (3) How was the front hub designed and analzed? The rear hub has the following major functions: (a) It has to rotate over the knuckle shaft (stub axle). So provision for bearings to be mounted inside the hub should be provided. (b) The hub has to mount over it a disc brake of our choice (Apache RTR 180 rear disc). (c) The hub also has to mount the rim on it. The hub should also share the loads induced on the knuckle i.e the vertical, lateral loads and the brake torque. The vertical load is applied on the holes in which rim studs will be mounted. The lateral load is applied to the face of the hub where the inside of the rim touches the hub. The brake torque is applied on that part of the hub where disc is mounted. The hub is fixed at the cylindrical surfaces where the bearings would be mounted. A static structural analysis was done to find the stresses induced in the hub

due to the above loads and then a fatigue analysis was performed to find the number of cycles of such loads that the hub can take. (4) How was the rear hub designed? The design parameters for the rear hub were almost the same as those for the front hub. The only difference was that unlike the front hub, the rear hub would be a driving hub and thus needs through the rear knuckle and needs a provision for mounting the cv joints. Apart from this the design, analysis, loads and fixtures on the rear hub were the same. (5) How was the rear knuckle? The biggest difference between the front and the rear knuckle is that since our vehicle is rear wheel drive, rear hub has to pass through the rear knuckle. This requires the rear knuckle to have provision for: (a) Mounting bearings inside it to support the hub that passes through it and (b) Mounting the disc brake calliper. (c) A provision to mount a toe-control rod. This rod is just like a tie rod but the other end of the rod is not mounted on a rack. It is mounted on to a chassis and cannot be moved. But the end of the rod that mounts on the knuckle can be adjusted to change the toe in or toe out of the rear wheels. This is necessary to attain optimum handling of the car. Other than these one more thing that needs to be kept in mind is that the rear suspension supports a greater mass than the front suspension, so the rear knuckle needs to be even stronger than the front knuckle under all the loads mentioned for front knuckle. The rear knuckle will be cast using milt steel. It weighs around 3kg. The loads and analysis procedure for the rear knuckle were same as those for the front knuckle. Change the knuckle and hub result photographs used in the ppt with the ones that have been attached with the mail. Only the static structural analysis pics need to be changed. The fatigue analysis pics do not need to be changed. Fatigue analysis results have not changed.

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