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The recent trend that has been adapted by the automobile industries
is that of focusing on ways to deliver high quality products to the market at a
faster rate and at low cost. The consumer demands products at a relatively chea
per cost with no sacrifices being made on the quality of the product being deliv
ered. Chassis is one of the fundamental portions of the vehicles structure and r
equires providing enough stiffness to ensure assemble and to provide support to
the whole automobile structure [17].
While the chassis is subjected to various mechanical loads in the f
orm of shock loads and mechanical vibrations that may result in resonance phenom
enon to occur, causing the mechanical structure to fail completely Even if the e
xternal vibrations are below the resonance frequency the external vibration can
get transmitted to the vehicle body causing the chassis to vibrate leading to ri
de discomfort, jeopardizing ride safety and stability of the vehicle. Structural
resonance is a phenomenon which occurs when the external or internal excitation
frequency of an applied force onto the structure is equal to the natural freque
ncy of the system. The results of resonance can be summarized as occurrence of v
ibrations of very high amplitude thus causing material fatigue and fracture, ens
uing failure of the system. Thus, it is of utmost importance to determine the na
tural frequency of the system in order to avoid the occurrence of such a phenome
non. Resonance usually occurs due interactions of the inertial and elastic prope
rties of the material within the structure. Resonance has been known to be the c
ause or at least a contributing factor towards the failure of operating machiner
ies due to vibration or noise related problems. Thus considering the various eff
ects vibration problems can have on a machine, analysis of the dynamic character
istics is very important from an engineering point of view [14].
A perfect chassis can be defined as a large diameter thin walled tu
be. The word chassis is of French terminology and was in the beginning used to d
enote the frame parts and basic structure of the vehicle [1]. In layman s terms a
vehicle without a body is called a chassis. The automotive chassis can be define
d to have two basic goals:
> Hold the weight of the components
> To rigidly fix the suspension components together while moving [1].
The chassis can be classified roughly based on the frame type as;
> Ladder frame chassis
> Space frame chassis
> Backbone chassis
> Tub design chassis
> Monocoque chassis
Ladder frame chassis:
Figure 1: Ladder frame chassis
The ladder frame chassis is the simplest and the oldest form of cha
ssis frame ever used in the modern vehicular construction. The design of this fr
ame was originally adapted from horse and buggy style carriages as it provided suf
ficient strength for holding the weight of the components. If the load on the ch
assis was to be increased then the weight holding capacity could be increased ju
st by the using larger beams. Body on frame is an auto mobile construction metho
d where a separate body is mounted on a rigid frame. The frame generally compris
e of two longitudinal beams (usually C-sections) that run the entire length of t
he vehicle with provided cross members provided to hold the rails in place. The
motor may be placed in the front or the rear and supported at suspension points.
Once we add a passenger compartment and a trunk with a load and it becomes a si
mple indeterminate beam. This type of chassis provides little support for a perf
ormance automobile. The cross members are provided to prevent torsional deflecti
on and maintain geometry. Sometimes X bracing is also done to increase torsional
stiffness of main frame [1].
PROBLEM STATEMENT
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Points
Lines
Surfaces
Solids
Preparing FEM
Meshing
Boundary conditions
Loads
Properties
Solution by ANSYS
Checking results
Modal analysis
Static structural analysis
Harmonic analysis
The meshing of the chassis is done by the use of auto generate mesh feature pre
sent in the FEA package ANSYS 14.0. The mesh so generated is program controlled
with the use of triangular elements. The proximity and curvature and higher rele
vance were also tried for, but the computer s inability to process the mesh result
ed in the adaptation of this mesh.
> The original chassis: The number of elements used to create the mesh is 33843
and the number of nodes used is 66828.
> The modified 1 chassis (modi2): The number of elements used to create the mesh
is 12513 and the number of nodes in the structure 24933.
> The modified 2 chassis (modi11): The number of elements used to create the mes
h is 8207 and the number of nodes in the structure 16241.
ANALYSIS IN ANSYS 14.0
The static structural, modal and harmonic response analysis id carr
ied out in the commercial packaged software ANSYS 14.0. The model is meshed and
four supports are attached on the underside of the chassis and the loads are pla
ced on the chassis. The equivalent (Von-Mises) stress and the total deformation
of the chassis under the given loads are examined in the structural analysis, th
e mode shapes and natural frequencies are established and in the harmonic analys
is the peak amplitude due to the resonance phenomenon is found.
Meshing, loads applied and boundary conditions on the chassis: