Abstract
The paper addressed DFMA and its implementation methods for light weighting of Commercial vehicle applications.
In order to show the advantages of designing by modern lightweight methods, the paper takes the balanced suspension for example. In case 1, not only did the spring shackle reduce 15% and its cost saved 25%, but also the geometry imperfections are solved by material substitution. In case 2, the system was optimized in order to achieve the reasonable stiffness distribution during the concept design by topology. In the detailed design process, using functional consolidation method and CAE optimized method, the weight of the whole system reduced 34.4%, especially the optimized bracket reduced 25%. Furthermore, the cost of the whole system reduced 30% on the premise of material unchanged, the fatigue safe factor of which rose 24.5%.
In conclusion ,using these modern lightweight methods, the system and key components of vehicle can be designed to be more light, more inexpensive, high efficient.
KEYWORDS – modern lightweight methods, DFMA,topology optimization, low cost, balanced suspension