Reserch On Finite Element Static Characteristics Of A Heavy-duty Truck Frame And Experiment

With the rapid economic development in China and the hastened progress of globalization,we have been increasingly relying on the market of energy and raw materials. At present, the price of international crude oil and industrial raw materials keeps rising, which causes a great burden on domestic economic development.As a pillar industry , automotive industry consumes a large of resources in China, which means its energy-saving situation has a direct impact on the overall level of country's energy consumption. So government pay highly attention on it. For lightweight car has great significance to energy efficiency, every international major vehicle manufacturer is trying its best to reduce the car's weight. The technology to design lightweight vehicle has become one of the hotspots in the current automobile research.As the matrix of heavy-duty truck, automobile frame is supporting all the relevant mechanics of sprung mass such as the engine, clutch, transmission, steering, driver's cab, and cargo box etc. The frame sustains every force and force moment of vehicles both inside and outside under poor use condition while forces are very complex. Frame should have sufficient stiffness, strength and enough reliability and life expectancy. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the frame's static characteristics is not only the base of vehicle structural design, improvement and lightweight, but also the key of ensuring the vehicle performance. This paper analyses the CAMC heavy trucks which are made with basing on original model adopting new technologies by CAMC factory.Finite element method has become one of the important tools to design modern cars. Comparing with traditional design methods, its advantage is improving automobile's quality, reducing production cost of development and manufacture, moreover, enhancing competitiveness of automobile in the market. In this paper, a brief introduction to the finite element method and software is prepared for analysing frame structure by the method at first. Secondly,taking a heavy-duty truck frame structure as the research object,the frame and its load are simplified by using Hypermesh, and then the finite element model is built to research the frame modeling process. After that, a deep research goes into frame structure's static characteristics by OptiStruct to evaluate performance of frame structure. Afterward, the finite element model is modified appropriately as per the result of several typical working condition testing on automobile testing ground in Dingyuan county. After the modification, the final calculation and analysis show the involved means of modeling and analysis are effective. Finally, the lightweight model of frame structure is set up, taking the size of frame beam section as the design variables to discuss preliminarily the lightweight design for frame which take total volume frame as subject.This paper illuminates the finite element method and Hypermesh software provide a sound basic theory and method for the simulation of frame structure and its static characteristics together with the lightweight design, with the help to their great engineering value to the study and design of lightweight frame structure.The method of finite element analysis and its process in this paper, are applicable to design and analyse other types of heavy-duty truck's frame.