Design and Analysis of Space Frame Chassis

Presenter Information

Barry Johnson, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Location

CSU 201

Start Date

9-4-2012 9:00 AM

End Date

9-4-2012 10:00 AM

Student's Major

Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Student's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Mentor's Name

Winston Sealy

Mentor's Department

Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering Technology

Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Description

A space frame chassis was designed and analyzed using Expert Framework Extension (EFX) ver. 7.0 and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tools within ProEngineer ver. 5.0. The chassis was designed to be as rigid and lightweight as possible while meeting the technical specifications given by the sanctioning body that we’ll be racing under. EFX ver. 7.0 was used to draw a three-dimensional wireframe of the chassis. Every line of the wireframe was given a profile for the dimensions of steel tubing. In addition the frame design was analyzed for resultant strains by simulating stresses of what would be created by the suspension system as the car went around the track. Before it could take hours to run a simulation using a solid model of a chassis and the simulation would often fail, but using the wireframe sketch with beam and frame tool analysis a simulation would run in under thirty seconds and would rarely fail. EFX ver. 7.0 reduced the amount of time and the complexity to create a model of the frame. Using EFX ver. 7.0 and FEA tools we were able to simulate the changes in rigidity and weight in each design iteration.