Analysis and Structural Optimization Of Chassis

Mini-Project work report submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Work done by N.Kaushik kumar Reddy,M.S.Navyadeep,G.Rajesh,K.Ravichandra Reddy,

Y.Sri Sai Phani Harsha,C.Nihanth
Under the guidance of
G.DURGA PRASAD

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

KONERU LAKSHMAIAH UNIVERISTY
GREEN FIELDS, VADDESWARAM
2011-2012

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the students________________________________________ Studying

_3/4 BTECH FIRST Semester branch MECHANICAL has done a project work on
Design Analysis and Manufacturing of Cylinder Liners during the academic year 20092010.

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT

(DR Y.V.HANUMANTHA RAO)

PROJECT GUIDE
(G.DURGA PRASAD)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We are extremely thankful to Dr. Y.V.HANUMANTHA RAO, Professor & Head of the
Department for the help and support he has provided in completing this work.
We express our sincere gratitude to G.DURGA PRASAD, Professor, Department of
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING for guidance and assistance he has provided in completing
this work. We take immense pleasure in thanking him for the freedom of thought and action.
We have enjoyed during the entire course of paper work. We shall always cherish our
association with him.
We are thankful to the staff of our department for their continuous encouragement in
completing our work successfully. We also thank the authorities of our college for providing
us necessary facilities.

N.Kaushik kumar Reddy

M.S.Navya Deep
G.Rajesh
K. Ravi Chandra Reddy
Y.Sri Sai Phani Harsha
C.Nihanth

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DECLARATION
The project report entitled ANALYSIS AND STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION OF
CHASSIS are original and are carried out by us under the supervision of G.DURGA
PRASAD, Asst-Professor, Department of Mechanical, Koneru Lakshmaiah University,
Vaddeswaram. This work has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in
part or full time prior to this date.

N.Kaushik kumar Reddy

M.S.Navya Deep
G.Rajesh
K. Ravi Chandra Reddy
Y.Sri Sai Phani Harsha
C.Nihanth

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OBJECTIVE
To study about the chassis and model it in a CAD package .The CAD model is analyzed for
various loading conditions in an analysis package .The chassis is re-modeled as a combination
of solid blocks and optimization is carried out using an Optimizer.

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ABSTRACT
The project was aimed to model the frame & chassis of the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE) Baja car which is a single-seated all-terrain vehicle and is used for off road usage and
endurance on a rough terrain. In many aspects it is similar to an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV)
except that it is much smaller in size and has safer rollover capabilities. The modeling of the
frame and chassis is done by using CATIA V5R20 software. This design is checked by Finite
Element Analysis after estimating the load and the weight of the frame optimized.

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CONTENTS:
1) INTRODUCTION
2) DEFINATION OF CHASSIS
3) TYPES OF CHASSIS
4) LOADS ACTING ON THE CHASSIS
5) CHASSIS USED IN OUR MINI PROJECT&ITS DESCRIPTION
6) MATERIALS USED IN MANUFACTURING OF CHASSIS
7) ANALSYS &DESCRIPTION
8) OPTIMIZATION
9) TYPES OF OPTIMIZATION
10) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
11) CONCLUSION
12) REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION TO BAJA VEHICLE

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An international Mini Baja design competition is organized by the Society of

Automotive Engineers (SAE) Mini Baja is an intercollegiate engineering design competition
for undergraduate and graduate engineering students. The objective is for a team of students
to design fabricate, and race an off-road vehicle powered by a ten horsepower Briggs and
Stratton gasoline engine. The vehicle is required to have a combination frame and roll cage
consisting of steel members. As weight is critical in a vehicle powered by a small engine, a
balance must be found between the strength and weight of the design. This project aims to
design the chassis for a mini Baja according to the SAE guidelines. Typical capabilities on
basis of which these vehicles are judged are hill climbing, pulling, acceleration &
manoeuvrability on land as well as water. This project is an attempt to design the chassis of a
Mini Baja from a scratch and based on the guidelines given by SAE, certain practices by the
Off-road vehicles industry and the concepts of mechanical engineering.

1. INTRODUCTION

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It is the under part of a vehicle, consisting of the frame (on which the body is
mounted) with the wheels and machinery..As it bears all the loads of the vehicle parts ,it
should be sufficiently strong and light in weight .so optimization of chassis is necessary.The
automotive chassis is tasked with holding all the components together while driving ,and
transfering vertical and lateral loads, caused by accelerations, on the chassis through the
suspension and two the wheels. Most engineering students will have an understanding of
forces and torques long before they read this. It is suggested that the reader has a good
understanding of the concepts of axial forces, shear forces, bending, torsion, angular and
normal deflections, and finally mass moment of inertia. The key to good chassis design is that
the further mass is away from the neutral axis the more rigid it will be. This one sentence is
the basis of automotive chassis design. Some people stress full triangulation and material
choice but once you are into these specifics some critical understanding is missed. People
familiar with space frames maybe thinking that full triangulation is the key to a good space
frame. While this will make the design better it can still benefit from this more general design
principles. The design section of the book will talk more about these items in relation to the
types of chassis but the first part is the theory.

FUNCTIONS OF A CHASSIS:
1.To carry load of the passengers or goods carried in the body.
2. To support the load of the body, engine, gear box etc.,
3. To withstand the forces caused due to the sudden braking or acceleration
4. To withstand the stresses caused due to the bad road condition.
5. To withstand centrifugal force while cornering.

TYPES OF CHASSIS:
There are five types of chassis frames
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Ladder frame
Tubular Space Frame
Monocoque
Back bone space frame
Space frame

Ladder frame:
This is the earliest kind of chassis. From the earliest cars until the early 60s,
nearly all cars in the world used it as standard. Even in today, most SUVs still employ it. Its
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construction, indicated by its name, looks like a ladder - two longitudinal rails interconnected
by several lateral and cross braces. The longitude members are the main stress member. They
deal with the load and also the longitudinal forces caused by acceleration and braking. The
lateral and cross members provide resistance to lateral forces and further increase torsional
rigidity.

ADVANTAGES:
1. Easy to manufacture
2. It is cheap and can be built with hand

DISADVANTAGES:
Since it is a 2 dimensional structure, torsion rigidity is very much lower than other chassis,
especially when dealing with vertical load or bumps

APPLICATIONS:
Most SUVs, classic cars, Lincoln Town Car, Ford Crown Victoria etc.

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TUBULAR SPACE FRAME:

As ladder chassis is not strong enough, motor racing engineers developed a 3
dimensional design - Tubular space frame. Tubular space frame chassis employs dozens of
circular-section tubes (some may use square-section tubes for easier connection to the body
panels, though circular section provides the maximum strength), position in different
directions to provide mechanical strength against forces from anywhere. These tubes are
welded together and forms a very complex structure.
For higher strength required by high performance sports cars, tubular space frame
chassis usually incorporate a strong structure under both doors ,hence result in unusually high
door sill and difficult access to the cabin.
Many high-end sports cars also adopted tubular space frame to enhance the rigidity /
weight ratio. However, many of them actually used space frames for the front and rear
structure and made the cabin out of monocoque to cut cost.

ADVANTAGES:
Very strong in any direction.(compare with ladder chassis and monocoque
chassis of the same weight)

DISADVANTAGES:

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Very complex, costly and time consuming to be built. Impossible for robotised
production. Besides, it engages a lot of space, raise the door sill and result in difficult access
to the cabin.

APPLICATIONS:
Lamborghini Diablo, Jaguar XJ220, Caterham, TVR

Monocoque:
Today, 99% cars produced in this planet are made of steel monocoque
chassis, thanks to its low production cost and suitability to robotised production.Monocoque
is a one-piece structure which defines the overall shape of the car. While ladder, tubular space
frame and backbone chassis provides only the stress members and need to build the body
around them, monoque chassis is already incoporated with the body in a single piece. In fact,
the one-piece chassis is actually made by welding several pieces together. The floorpan,
which is the largest piece, and other pieces are press-made by big stamping machines. They
are spot welded together by robot arms (some even use laser welding) in a stream production
line. The whole process just takes minutes. After that, some accessories like doors, bonnet,
boot lid, side panels and roof are added. Monocoque chassis also benefit crash protection.
Because it uses a lot of metal, crumple zone can be built into the structure.
Another advantage is space efficiency. The whole structure is actually an outer shell,
unlike other kinds of chassis, therefore there is no large transmission tunnel, high door sills,
large roll over bar etc. Obviously, this is very attractive to mass production cars.
Although monocoque is suitable for mass production by robots, it is nearly impossible
for small-scale production. The setup cost for the tooling is too expensive - big stamping
machines an expensive mouldings.

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ADVANTAGES:
Cheap for mass production. Inherently good crash protection. Space efficient.

Backbone Chassis:
Backbone chassis is very simple: a strong tubular backbone (usually in rectangular
section) connects the front and rear axle and provides nearly all the mechnical strength.
Inside which there is space for the drive shaft in case of front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout
like the Elan. The whole drivetrain, engine and suspensions are connected to both ends of the
backbone. The body is built on the backbone, usually made of glass-fibre.
It's strong enough for smaller sports cars but not up to the job for high-end ones. In
fact, the original De Tomaso Mangusta employed chassis supplied by Lotus and experienced
chassis flex.
TVR's chassis is adapted from this design - instead of a rigid backbone, it uses a
lattice backbone made of tubular space frames. That's lighter and stronger.

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ADVANTAGES:
Strong enough for smaller sports cars. Easy to be made by hand thus cheap for lowvolume production. Simple structure benefit cost. The most space-saving other than
monocoque chassis.

DISADVANTAGES:
Not strong enough for high-end sports cars. The backbone does not provide protection
against side impact or off-set crash. Therefore it need other compensation means in the body.
Cost ineffective for mass production.

Applications:
Lotus Esprit, Elan Mk II, TVR, Marcos.

VARIOUS LOADS ACTING ON THE CHASSIS:

1. Static loads- loads due to chassis parts
2. Impact loads-due to the collision of the vehicle
3. Momentary duration loads-while taking curve.

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ANALYSIS:
Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis
for discussion or interpretation.

NEED FOR ANALYSIS:

In olden days manufacturers used to produce prototype of the model and did the
analysis manually so because of that there used to be a waste of material and time.
Even though if the mode is manufactured there were sudden failures during the real
time usage to overcome the wastage of materials and time now a days the prototypes is
designed in any available designing software the cad model is imported into analysis software
and the necessary load conditions are simulated using the software and experimental results
are found out.
If the desired results are obtained then the prototype is further processed for
manufacturing .If the desired results are not obtained, then the prototype is re modeled and
again analysis is carried out until the desired results are obtained .
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SOFTEWARES USED FOR ANALYSIS:

HyperMesh
Altair HyperMesh is a high-performance finite element pre-processor that provides a
highly interactive and visual environment to analyze product design performance.
With the broadest set of direct interfaces to commercial CAD and CAE systems,
HyperMesh provides a proven, consistent analysis platform for the entire enterprise.
With a focus on engineering productivity, HyperMesh is the user-preferred environment
for:

Solid and surface geometry modeling

Shell meshing
Model morphing
Detailed model setup
Solid mesh generation
Automatic mid-surface generation
Batch meshing
RADIOSS:
RADIOSS is a finite element solver for linear and non-linear simulations. It can be
used to simulate structures, fluid, fluid-structure interaction, sheet metal stamping, and
mechanical systems. Multi-body dynamics simulation is made possible through the
integration with MotionSolve.
The CAD model is pre-processed(i.e. importing CAD model ,meshing ,loading
conditions are setup) in hypermesh .Then the finite element model is submitted to the
RADIOSS ,which carries out the analysis.

HyperView:
HyperView is a complete post-processing and visualization environment for finite
element analysis (FEA), CFD, multi-body system simulation, digital video, and engineering
data. Amazingly fast 3-D graphics and unparalleled functionality set a new standard for the
speed and integration of CAE results post-processing. HyperView enables you to visualize
data interactively as well as capture and standardize your post-processing activities using
process automation features. HyperView combines advanced animation and XY plotting
features with window synching to enhance reults visualization. HyperView also saves 3-D
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animation results in Altair's compact H3D format so you can visualize and share CAE results
within a 3-D web environment using HyperView Player.
After the analysis is carried out in RADIOSS ,the results(displacements and Vonmises stresses) are viewed in HyperView.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANALYSIS:

1. STATIC
2. MODAL
3. TRANSIENT

1. STATIC ANALYSIS:

Static analysis is used to determine the stress, strain, reactions and

displacements of the element

In this type of analysis linear data is given as input linear data means the data
which does not change with respect to time or any other factor

2. MODAL ANALYSIS:

Modal analysis is used to determine the natural frequency and the mode
shape(vibration characteristics)
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 By finding the natural frequency of the element we ca predict the failure of the
element due to resonance

3. TRANSIENT ANALYSIS

Transient analysis is used to determine the stress, strain and displacement

similar to that of the static analysis

In this non linear data is given as the input non linear data means the data
which changes with respect to time

It used when the loading condition on a element is continuous over a period of

time

It is used when analysis is carried out on materials like composites

Force caluclations :
mass of the vehicle = 450kg
speed of the vehicle = 50kmph =13.89 mps
time for stopping = .5sec
Total force = (m*v)/t = 12500
Considering the worst case(i.e. the buggy has been hit by another buggy),the total force
during impact would be around 20000N.Let us assume force acting for both impact and
rollover be 20000N.
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Fig: CAD model of SAE BAJA

The chassis is imported into the hypermesh. First it is auto meshed by using an element size
of 2.Then the mesh is extended to the whole component using the 3-D tetramesh.

Rigids:

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These are the 1-D elements available in hypermesh. These can be used for transmitting loads
equally among different nodes of the FE model. These are created by first selecting the
master node and then the slave nodes, for whom the force have to be transmitted.

1.rigids at front

2.rigids at top

3.rigids at rear

The loads are applied on the rigid elements

The areas where the axle of the wheels are connected to the chassis are constrained in
3 directions(i.e. translations along x, y and z axis.

1.constraints at front axle

2.constraints at rear axle

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Analysis results:

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Optimization
Definition:
Optimization can be defined as the automatic process to make a system or
component as good as possible based on an objective function and subject to
certain design constraints. Simply, optimization is the act of improving
something. Structural optimization methods are rather peculiar ways of applying
more traditional optimization algorithms to structural problems solved by means
of finite elements analysis. These techniques are an effective approach through
which large structural optimization problems can be solved rather easily.
What is the need of optimization?
Optimization practices allow you to produce a better product. The goal of this
optimization was to minimize chassis weight by iterating tubing size (increasing
vehicle performance and efficiency). Optimization is key in all industries, but
especially in the automotive industry where every single component in a vehicle
to come to the lightest and best possible result . Finally, Optimization is not a
need, it is a wish.
Structural optimization:
Structural optimization of mechanical components leads to considerable
energy saving and to other efficiency gains. Preventing the occurrence of high
stress areas in an individual component increases average component lifetime
and can also have important safety benefits. The aim of this project was to
efficiently find the optimum design of a mechanical component subject to given
operating and/or manufacturing restrictions
Types:

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There are many different methods or algorithms that can be used to

optimize a structure. In particular, with the term structural optimization methods
we refer to:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Topology optimization
Topography optimization
Size optimization
Shape optimization.

1. Topology optimization:
Topology optimization was firstly introduced by Bedsore and Sigmund.
Topology optimization is a mathematical approach that optimizes
material layout within a given design space, for a given set of loads
and boundary conditions such that the resulting layout meets a prescribed
set of performance targets. Topology optimization is used at the concept
level of the design process to arrive at a conceptual design proposal that
is then fine tuned for performance and manufacturability. This replaces
time consuming and costly design iterations and hence reduces design
development time and overall cost while improving design performance.
It has developed in several directions giving birth to rather different
approaches, the most simple and known of which is the SIMP (Single Isotropic
Material with Penalization). In topology optimization it is supposed that the
elements density can vary between 0 (void) and 1 (presence of the material).

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2. Topography optimization:
Topography optimization is an advanced form of shape optimization in
which a design region for a given part is defined and a pattern of shape
variable-based reinforcements. Topography optimization can be applied
only to 2D or shell elements and aims at finding the optimum beads
pattern in a component. The concept is yet similar to the previous cases
and, simply speaking, the variables are given by the set of the elements
offsets from the component mid-plane. Topography Optimization is an
optimization capability which allows the user to find the location and
shape of bead patterns to stiffen panel structures.

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Free Size:
It is a mathematical technique that produces an optimized
thickness distribution per element for a 2D structure. It can be broadly
classified in to size and shape optimization.

3. Size optimization:
Sizing Optimization is an optimization capability which allows the user
to find the best dimensions of any designable elements like bars, shells
and composites.

Size optimization is the same as topometry

optimization, but in this case the number of variables is greatly reduced in

that the shell thicknesses of components are considered in place of the
single elements of the domain It is an automated way to modify the
structure parameters (Thickness, 1D properties ,material properties,
etc) to find the optimized size.

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4. Shape optimization:
It is an automated way to modify the structure shape based on set of
nodes that can move totally free on the boundary to find the optimal
shape.
Shape Optimization - is an optimization capability which allows the user
to find the best shape possible. The typical problem is to find
the shape which

is

optimal

in

that

it

minimizes

certain

cost functional while satisfying given constraints. In many cases, the

functional being solved depends on the solution of a given partial
differential equation defined on the variable domain.

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