LIGHT-WEIGHT DESIGN OF AUTOMOTIVE SUSPENSION LINK BASED ON DESIGN OF EXPERIMENT

Abstract

It is well known that the targeted fuel efficiency could only be achieved by more than 40% reduction of the vehicle weight through improved design and extensive utilization of lightweight materials. In order to obtain the goal of the weight reduction of automobiles, the researches about lighter and stronger suspension link have been studied without sacrificing the safety of automotive suspension. In this study, the weight reduction design process of suspension link could be proposed based on the variation of von-Mises stress contour by substituting an aluminum alloys (A356) having tensile strength of 310 MPa grade instead of STKM11A steels. In addition, the effect of the stress and stiffness on shape variations of the suspension link were examined and compared carefully. It could be reached that this approach method could be well established and be contributed for light-weight design guide and the optimum design conditions of the automotive suspension link development.