Chassis Design Validation of A Baja Car

Chassis Design Validation of a Baja Car
Date: 2013 to 2014 Baja SAE Season
Client: NC A&T Baja SAE Team
Background:
The Baja SAE program develops an off-road vehicle to compete in an international
intercollegiate design competition. The vehicle is tested against all forms of terrain.
NC A&T Baja SAE program has a history of designing and fabricating their chassis. When
designing the suspension for off-road vehicles, a significant factor that must be considered is
how to dissipate loads and vibrations introduced by adverse terrain.
Generally speaking, suspension designers can either choose for one of two vehicle components
to accept that load. Either the shocks of the vehicle can compress and absorb the load or the
shocks can have an extremely high spring rate and transfer the entire load to the chassis. The
chassis will then yield and twist but will snap back to its original shape after the load has been
transferred. The ability of a chassis to accept this load is referred to as it’s torsional rigidity.
This year, NC A&T Baja SAE chose for the shocks to accept loads from travel. Shocks were
selected according to their ideal performance matching the suspension design. To ensure that
the majority of the load will be assumed by the shocks, finite element analysis had to be
conducted on the chassis to verify the torsional rigidity is high and it will not suffer significant
deformation (less than 1”). Of course, once the shocks are fully compressed, the rest of the load
must be assumed by the chassis. This tradeoff was an engineering decision to guarantee the
chassis would not plastically deform due to unexpected and intense loads such as those
experienced during a crash.
Method:
The torsional rigidity was measured with ANSYS Workbench 14.5. Loads were applied to each
of the shock mount locations and the chassis was fixed at the control arm mounting locations to
simulate the corner of the vehicle in bump. Loads were applied in the direction of the shocks
during full droop. This will simulate full compression of the shocks.
Load Derivation:
To begin the analysis, a load must be determined. The car has four of the same model
pneumatic shocks on each corner of the car. The manufacturer provided design specifications
1
and suspension designer set an initial pressure and constant temperature for each shock based
on an assumption. This information was inputted into MATLAB. Basic compressible fluid
dynamic principles were considered and the resulting plot was determined.
Design Specifications:
Figure 1 Plot which determines spring rate in relation to shock travel.
Maximum shock travel of each shock is 5.5” and at that point, the spring rate is 28 lb/in. The
maximum force applied by each shock was estimated as:
The rear right and the front right corners of the car were considered for analysis and loads were
applied during full droop. The unit vectors of the shocks in the direction of the chassis are:
2
Modeling:
The original chassis was modeled in Solidworks. When the solid model is directly loaded into
ANSYS Workbench 14.5, meshing becomes difficult due to the trimmed and extended chassis
members where they are welded together at each node. A simplified linebody is often more
appropriate for this level of analysis. To begin, points for each node of the chassis was found in
Solidworks and inputted into DesignModeler.
Figure 2 Points to describe Chassis
3
Those points were then connected to form a linebody that described the chassis. Appropriate
cross-sectional dimensions for tubing were set.
Figure 3 Linebody of the chassis
4
Finite Element Analysis:
In Mechanical, constraints were applied at the locations of the control arm mounts and the
loads were applied.
Figure 4 Loads and constraints for study of rear Figure 5 Loads and constraints for study of front
right corner of the vehicle right corner of the vehicle
Finite Element Model (Results):
Using the beam tool, deformation of the chassis was determined for each study.
Figure 6 Deformation plot of the rear right corner Figure 7 Deformation plot of the front right corner
study study
The final results show a maximum deformation of 3.3 mm or approximately 0.13” which is
insignificant and validates that the shocks will be able to fully compress under expected loads.
5
Final Product:
Figure 8 Fabricated chassis prior to painting and Figure 9 Rear of Chassis after painting and
finishing finishing
Figure 10 Front of Chassis after painting and Figure 11 Final Product Manufactured and
finishing Assembled at competition

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Chassis Design Validation of a Baja Car

Date: 2013 to 2014 Baja SAE Season

Client: NC A&T Baja SAE Team

Figure 1 Plot which determines spring rate in relation to shock travel.

Figure 2 Points to describe Chassis

Figure 3 Linebody of the chassis

Finite Element Model (Results):

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