Lightweight Study On Light Driving Axle

In this paper,light driving axle is used as a platform for lightweight design research.In order to achieve this goal,it is realized by using high strength,lightweight materials,and a more compact new structure arrangement.Use cast rigid axle housing instead of press-welding axle housing to reduce the weight of the driving axle housing.Themeasures are to reduce the thickness of the whole housing,optimize the key force position on the driving axle housing,strengthen locally,and finally achieve the overall weight reduction.Using cast aluminum alloy instead of the original cast iron material to realize the lightweight target of the final reducer housing.Because the density of the cast aluminum is about 1/3 of the density of the cast iron,it can greatly reduce the weight of the parts.A more compact layout is applied to improve the structure of the wheel part.The hub bearing unit is used to replace the original cross bearing scheme,so as to shorten the axial size and reduce the weight of the hub.As a shell part,the weight of the axle housing is very large in the whole chassis parts.However,the measures to lighten the axle housing are not yet achieved by using austempered ductile iron(ADI).In this paper,the application of the light driving axle housing as the research platform to realize the application of the austempered ductile iron(ADI)material on the driving axlehousing.This paper taking the light driving axle as an example,the cast axle housing of austempered ductile iron is applied.To use cast rigid axle housing instead of the traditional casting axle housing with wheel shaft tube installation.Through calculation and CAE analysis,it is ensured that the new axle housing is equivalent to the original structure in strength and stiffness.To ensure that all indexes meet the requirements of vehicle strength and life,lightweight is achieved,and the weight of single piece is reduced by 38%.At the same time,machining process and assembly process are reduced,and production efficiency is improved.In this paper,aluminum alloy materials are used for lightweight design of the final reducer housing,with a density of about 35% of the cast steel.Because the cast aluminum material is more soft than the cast steel,it is necessary to focus on the supporting stiffness of the bearing and gear mounting parts.The problem can be solved by increasing the local wall thickness of the housing and strengthen the rib.Improving the uneven load distribution of the screw hole on the aluminum alloy housing by adding a steel wire screw sleeve.This scheme realizes one piece effective weight reduction by 47%.The lightweight scheme mentioned in this paper also includes the design of the wheel hub bearing unit with SKF.This design reduces the axial size of the hub,axle shaft and other parts,making the structure more compact.At the same time,this scheme realizes the effect of maintenance free and avoids the failure of products caused by improper maintenance.This scheme has achieved a light weight of 38%.