Fatigue Life Prediction Of Heavy Truck Drive Axle Driveline

Fatigue life of the drive axle driveline is one of the most important parameters to evaluate the quality of automobile. Generally the traditional methods to predict the drive axle fatigue life are carried out by the experiment of the specimen of drive axle test on the fatigue bench in the laboratory or the experimental prototype vehicle test on the road. But all of these methods have the disadvantages of long time and high cost, and the fatigue life of the drive axle can’t be estimated accurately at the design stage. In this paper, the research object is a certain type of heavy truck drive axle. The fatigue life of the drive axle driveline is analyzed by FEM in a virtual environment. The specific research contents are as follows:Three-dimensional model of the drive axle driveline is created by precise modeling technique. A dynamic analysis is performed for the main components of the drive axle driveline by ADAMS and the correctness of the model is verified.The finite element models of the major parts in the drive axle driveline are established, the modal of each part are calculated, and the respective flexible body files are generated, which import into ADAMS, and a rigid-flexible coupling model of the drive axle driveline is established. The load spectrum of corresponding parts is received by the simulation of the conditions of drive axle fatigue bench test. Then fatigue life of the drive axle driveline is predicted with a nominal stress method, load spectrum and S-N curve are considered.According to compare bench test results with that of CAE, CAE technology in fatigue life prediction of drive axle driveline has better feasibility. The theoretical basis is provided for fatigue life of the drive axle driveline prediction in the actual conditions. While the dependence of the test sample is reduced, the research can provide a method for the design and improvement of the drive axle driveline.