Abstract
Research and/or Engineering Questions/Objective
Light weight design is regarded as the important method to improve vehicle fuel economy and drain, and the use of new lightweight materials is an important means of lightweight design. However, owing to relatively high cost of the aluminum alloy car body, it is difficult to be accepted by the market considering the current processing and manufacturing technology. For this problem, a compromised method is sought to study the steel aluminum hybrid body city bus in order to have light weight design within allowance range.
Methodology
In this paper, the finite element method is used to establish the finite element model of the body. In the model, it use composite connection mode of bolt and bonding between aluminum alloy and steel material body, and riveting and bonding between aluminum alloy body and steel chassis, and bolt with a connecting piece and bonding among the aluminum alloy profiles. The finite element model for steel-aluminum hybrid material city coach body uses implicit algorithm to calculate static rigidity and modal characteristics. This paper compares and analyzes the differences of the static stiffness, modal characteristics and quality between steel aluminum composite body and the steel structure.
Research results
In this paper, the finite element model of the city coach body is established, and the static stiffness and modal characteristics are then simulated. The simulation results show that, the weight of the steel-aluminum hybrid material is significantly reduced, and the static stiffness remains essentially flat, which effectively improves the natural frequency and natural vibration mode compared with the steel structure city coach body.
Limitations of this study
The design of the steel-aluminum hybrid material city coach body in this paper has not been verified, in addition, the connection parts of the body is likely to produce friction noise, affecting the vehicle NVH characteristics. In the future, there is also another need to conduct some researches on fatigue analysis, impact analysis, NVH analysis, and so on, especially about application and research on city bus.
What does the paper offer that is new in the field including in comparison to other work by the authors?
In this paper, the research on the city bus body of the steel aluminum composite material is relatively novel. The application and research on the steel-aluminum hybrid materials and its connecting technology is not common in the automobile, especially on the city coach.
Conclusions
The steel-aluminum hybrid city coach body designed in this paper well meets the request of light weight design. It decreases the mass of city coach body, improves intrinsic frequency of each order at the same time, and is an ideal project considering manufacturing cost and realizing lightweight design.
Key Words : Steel-aluminum hybrid body; city coach; light weight; finite element analysis