Design Optimization of Automotive Wheel Based on Numerical Stiffness Anal-ysis

Abstract

In order to address vibration phenomena caused by wheel deformation, it is necessary to study the wheel stiffness behavior in terms of different loads. This paper enumerates a novel method of calculating the stiffness parameters of a wheel using Finite Element Analysis and Experimental method. CATIA, a commercial Modeling (CAD) and Finite Element (FE) software code has been used to simulate the load cases, a wheel suffering under stiffness test condition. The displacement responses obtained from these simulations are used to calculate the stiffness of the wheel. The experimental method was illustrated and explained how to verify the FEA results. A wheel design and optimization was given as an example to state the procedure and its effect.