Optimization Of Steering Of The Dual-front-axle Heavy Trucks And Finite Element Analysis Of Leaf-spring

CAE is the abbreviation of Computer-Aided Engineering. With the growing computer technology, enterprises can build the digital prototype of their products, simulate the product using conditions, and do the engineering verifications, FEA analyses etc. Simulation testing, parameters confirming, defection detecting, optimization designing and cost reducing, all can be achieved by enterprises with using CAE during product development stage. Virtual prototyping (VP) and finite element analysis (FEA) technology are belonged to CAE.As a new industry technology, virtual prototyping (VP) technology has been used in many fields and shown great technical advantages and economic benefits. Due to the advantage of the new technology VP, in order to improve the uncompleted aspects in the traditional design of steering system of the dual-front-axle heavy trucks, the new technique is applied in the field of the heavy trucks design process. The multi-body steering system model of a dual-front-axle heavy trucks using ADAMS software was established, which contains steering wheel, recirculating ball steering gear, double-front ax le, dual-rocking arms, king pin etc. According to the created virtual model and simulative result, we analyze the kinematics capability of steering system of the dual-front-axle heavy truck as well as the check of its intervene movement, especially discussing the dynamics analysis of steering system under the instruction of Virtual Prototyping, moreover, we do some optimization on the dual-steering trapezoids and double rocking arms.FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is becoming the main stream in automobile designing. One of the most benefits of FEA is that it can simulate the real product operation conditions, partially substitute the tests and instruct precise designing. There are nonlinear and sluggish properties in leaf-spring operation. Great distortion, friction, contact between leaves, combination of pre-assembly stress and working stress all can be included when applying the FEA methods to design leaf-spring, and then precise design can be implemented. Nonlinearity of geometry and status easily lead convergence difficulty, so there need more requirements in analyzing skill and strategy. We analyzed the static-dynamic stiffness and stress distribution of one leaf-spring by using the software Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit, studied the friction influence to leaf-spring performance. The method and conclusion in this paper can be used for the design and analysis of the similar products.