Analysis of a Lightweight Aluminum Vehicle Chassis in a Simulation-Based Design Approach

This study investigates different chassis designs through a simulation-based design approach. The inherent aluminum ductility and softness could make chassis a daunting modification if not analyzed properly. Structural finite element analysis is comprehensively performed on a vehicle chassis for static loading cases up to 1G in equivalent acceleration. The analysis of the vehicle chassis of both A36 steel and 6061 aluminum for the scenarios of bump, front impact, side impact and a rollover. The von Mises stresses and displacement results showed that the steel chassis possessed higher safety factor in all load cases. The safety factors for an aluminum clone of the steel chassis in some load cases are below 1.0, hence indicating that the failure criterion has been triggered and failure would occur under the 1G load. The original aluminum chassis deformation is far more severe than steel reaching as high as 9.88 mm for the bump loading. A modified aluminum chassis is proposed, by optimizing the wall thickness of the rectangular bars. The slight increase in weight resulted in overcoming the deficiency of aluminum in load carrying capacity. An evaluation matrix procedure is implemented to analyze the trade offs between cost, weight and safety factor for the three chassis materials.