Structure Analysis And Lightweight Optimization Study Of The Commercial Vehicle Drive Axle Housing Based On The Finite Element Method

The automobile drive axle housing is the importance carrying and passing component, it supports the weight of vehicle, and transfer the weight to the wheel. The drive axle housing also withstands the opposite force of tractive force, braking force,lateral force and vertical force as well as the counter-torque act on the wheels and transfer to the frame and body through suspension fork. So the performance of automobile drive axle housing structure affects whether the automible design is successful or not.With the rapid development of automobile industy, the performance request becomes stricter and stricter, which makes conventional caculation methods of design can't meet the needs of modern automobile design.With the rapid development of computer technology and industrial economy, the modern design is used more and more widely. Nowadays, many enterprises and design department have used finite element method widely on the manufacturing process simulation of product, optimization design and so on.Using finite element method to analysis automobile drive axle housing structure and taking it optimization into account make sense in improving automobile performance, reducing the cost of design and manufacture of cars and increasing capability of market competion.In this paper, the following problems are studied:the structure performance^,the strength,stiffness and dynamic characteristics of drive axle housing.Using Pro/E software to parametric modeling of the drive axle housing structure. And stress analysis and strength check the typical working conditions drive axle housing when it is on the full load.And then proceed modal analysis and obtain its fixed frequency. select optimized algorithm set the optimal objective function and constraints, at last optimized design of the driving axle shell.So as to achieve the purpose of reducing weight, make structure more reasonable.The study shows that use the ansys10.0 softwore to the finite element analysis and optimized design of the driving axle shell can help improve design level of drive axle housing.Shorten design cycle and reduce develop cost.