Research On Simulation Of Impact Characteristics And Lightweight Design Of Steel Wheel

Wheel is the main load carrying component in moving parts and it isnecessary for wheel to endure irregular stress caused by various types ofstatic and dynamic loads, so wheel safety performance determines vehicleperformance and class. Impact test examines vehicle traveling capabilityunder sudden and harsh conditions leading to wheel failure and breakdowneasily while passing speed bumps and road pits and impacted by road sideand stone. In order to reduce design period, it is more and more popular touse CAE analysis in simulation of wheel impact test during deign period. Asa result, how to improve simulation accuracy of impact test becomes aconcern to researchers.In this paper, mechanical characteristics of steel wheel under quasi-staticand high strain rates are studied and a constitutive model considering severalstrain rates generally is built. Based on this, FEA models of steel wheel andtire under13°and90°impact conditions are established and accuracy of FEAmodels of impact test is validated by practical experiments of impact test.Approximation model is used to make a study on lightweight design of steelrim. The contents of this paper contribute to simulation analysis of impactcharacteristics and lightweight design of steel wheel.The main contents and conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1) Tensile tests of rim and spoke materials under quasi-static and highstrain rates are conducted and the influence of strain rate on stress-strainrelationships of rim and spoke materials are studied by true stress-straincurves of quasi-static and high strain rates. According to true stress-straincurves of quasi-static and three high strain rates, a generalized Cowper -Symonds constitutive model is built considering several strain rates of rimmaterial generally. The accuracy of this constitutive model is validated bycomparing fitting and experimental stress-strain curves of rim material understrain rate200s-1.(2) Based on the generalized constitutive model of rim material, acomplete FEA model of impact test of steel wheel including steel wheel, tireand impact punch is built and impact characteristics of steel wheel areanalyzed and evaluated under13°and90°impact conditions. Meanwhile,practical experiments of impact test are conducted and accuracy of FEAmodel of impact test of steel wheel is validated by comparing simulationresults and experiment results of total process of impact test anddisplacements and deformation forms of rim and spoke. As a conclusion, amethod and procedure of simulation analysis of impact characteristics of steelwheel are proposed.(3) An approximation model of impact characteristics of steel wheel isbuilt using and LH design and SVR method and overall prediction accuracyof this approximation model is validated by RMSE and R2. An optimalsolution of lightweight design of steel rim is obtained based on thisapproximation model. A proper engineering modification is made to thisoptimal solution which is validated by comparing impact characteristics ofsteel wheel of lightweight design and original design using simulationanalysis of impact test. The final lightweight design realizes a weightreduction of6.48%.