Chassis Lightweighting Hole Placement with Weldline Evaluation

Vehicle weight driven design comes amid rising higher fuel efficiency standard, and must meet the criteria - pass Proving ground test events that is equivalent customer usage. CAE Fatigue analysis for proving ground (CFP) is behind a success push to digitally simulate vehicle durability performance in high fidelity. The need for vehicle weight reduction often arises late in vehicle development phases when CAE Methods, time, and tangible cost effective opportunities are limited or non-existent. It is necessary to deploy a new CAE Method to identify opportunities for light-weighting hole placement in Chassis structures to deliver a cost effective light-weighting opportunity with no impact on fatigue life. The successful application of this methodology is on truck frame, which is key structural parts for vehicle chassis to support body and suspension and powertrain. By means of artificially adjusting the magnitude of load time history and material fatigue properties S-N curve, fatigue life calculation can highlight potential areas for lightweighting holes. Weldline fatigue is further carried on to verify the impact from those lighting holes.