Session: 14-06-01: Developments in Design Theory for Component and System Safety and Reliability

Paper Number: 112381

112381 - Numerical Analysis on Buckling of Ultrahigh Strength Steel Wheel 

The wheel acts as a rotating part of the un-sprung mass, whose weight reduction brings significantly higher energy-saving effect than that of non-rotating parts. However, a lightweight design can only be acceptable if material selection does not influence the requirements concerning safety. With superior mechanical properties than normal strength steels, ultrahigh strength steels (UHSS) have been increasingly used in the lightweight design of vehicle wheels. The lightweight wheels made by UHSS demonstrate great strength and crashworthiness capabilities, but the thinning thickness also makes the wheel prone to buckling instability when vehicles are operated under excessive loads. Recent studies mainly focus on wheel strength and impact resistance, while there are few works on the wheel rigidity analysis. Therefore, it is necessary to develop effective simulation methods for predicting the critical buckling load of wheels, so as to provide guidance for wheel design meeting rigidity requirements. In this paper, two different methods are studied to model tire-rim interaction for the buckling analysis of the UHSS wheel under inflation pressure. The first method is to simplify the tire-rim interaction load into a simple function form and apply it directly on the rim surface, which does not model the tire. The second method relies on a finite element tire model, where contact interaction between the tire and rim is modeled to obtain the tire-rim interface forces. According to the comparison between simulation results and experimental results, the both methods successfully obtain the buckling failure form that the tire deflates due to the rim flange denting. But over 39% error is observed in predicting the buckling load of the wheel using the first method, while the error based on the second method is less than 5%. The results indicate that the exact calculation of the tire-rim interface load by establishing a tire-wheel assembly model can significantly improve the simulation accuracy in the wheel buckling analysis. In addition, the effects of material machinal properties, and initial imperfection by manufacturing factors on the wheel rigidity are investigated using the second method. It is found that wheel buckling load can be increased by decreasing the yield strength of the wheel material. A low imperfection factor is also beneficial for improving the wheel rigidity, which can be achieved through controlling the wheel processing accuracy. This research not only reveals the key factors for improving simulation accuracy in the wheel buckling analysis, but also provides reliable guidance for the rigidity improvement of UHSS wheels.

Presenting Author: Jintao Luo Beihang University

Presenting Author Biography: fatigue analysis and structural optimzation

Authors:

Jintao Luo Beihang University
Zhengwen Li School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University
Yingchun Shan School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University
Xiandong Liu School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University
Yizhuo Wang School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University
Er Jiang Xingmin Intelligent Transportation Systems (Group) Co.