FE design analysis and optimization of heavy-duty truck chassis using sparse grid initialization technique

Automotive chassis acts as the base of a vehicle providing necessary strength and support to the various body parts subjected to different loading. Investigation of the stresses and other design constraints of a heavy motor vehicle chassis (HMVC) before manufacturing is quite significant especially when the automotive industry experiencing a high demand of light weight material and economic chassis. The present study comprises a static structure analysis followed by the optimization of a ladder type HMV (truck) chassis using MMC material Unidrectional Aluminium P100/6061 Al MMC with a primary objective to investigate the applications of MMC in the mass reduction of the HMV chassis. Finite Element (FE) analysis is performed on ANSYS 18.1 software using sparse grid initialization optimization scheme of response surface method. The actual mass of chassis with conventional material (St52E) is 214.64 Kg while mass of chassis using Metal matrix composite P100/6061 Al material is 67.922 Kg; hence the mass decrease acquired by sparse grid initialization optimization is approximately 68.4% utilizing MMC material. Thus, the usage of metal matrix composites material for chassis can significantly reduce weight of chassis. Copyright (c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Latest Developments in Materials & Manufacturing.