Search Results

To compete with the current market trends there is always a need to arrive at a cost effective and light weight designs. For Commercial Vehicles, an attempt is made to replace existing Gear Shift Fork from FC Iron (Ferro Cast Iron) to ADC (Aluminum Die Casting) without compromising its strength & stiffness, considering/bearing all the worst road load cases and severe environmental conditions. ADC has good mechanical and thermal properties compared to FC Iron. Feasible design has been Optimized within the given design space with an extra supporting pad for load distribution. Optimization, Stiffness, Contact pattern has been done using OptiStruct, Nastran & Ansys for CAE evaluation. A 6-speed manual transmission is used as an example to illustrate the simulation and validation of the optimized design. Advanced linear topology optimization methods have been addressed as the most promising techniques for light weighting and performance design of Powertrain structures.

Brake drum in commercial vehicles is very important aggregate contributing towards major weight in brake system module. The main function of brake drum is to dissipate kinetic energy of vehicle into thermal energy, as a results in braking operation major load comes on brake drum. Hence this is very critical component for vehicle safety and stability [1]. Objective of this paper is to increase the pay load, which is utmost important parameter for commercial vehicle end customers. To achieve the light weighing target, alternate materials such as Spheroidal graphite iron (SGI) has been evaluated for development of brake drum. Many critical parameters in terms of reliability, safety and durability, thickness of hub, wheel loading, heat generation on drum, manufacturing and assembly process are taken into consideration. The sensitivity of these parameters is studied for optimum design, could be chosen complying each other’s values.

Advanced Non-linear topology optimization methods have been addressed as the most promising techniques for light weight and performance design of Powertrain structures. The theoretical achievements are obtained both mechanically and mathematically. Nowadays, the great challenge lies in solving more complicated engineering design problems with multidisciplinary objectives or complex structural systems. The purpose of this paper is to provide a forum to present new developments in structural Non-linear topology optimization. The advantage of the proposed method is that structural optimization on irregular design domains can be carried out easily. Furthermore, this method integrates the stress analysis and the boundary evolution within the framework of finite element methods. In this paper, mainly focused on the Commercial Vehicles Powertrain component i.e. Transmission Housing.