Research on Lightweighting of Aluminum Alloy Steering Knuckle Structure for Pure Electric Cars
PAN Weimin
ZHANG Yuzhuo
HOU Sen
Abstract：In order to realize the lightweight of the chassis of a pure electric car,a method of steering knuckle structure optimization combining topology optimization and parameter optimization was proposed.A solid model of the steering knuckle was established,and a static strength finite element analysis was carried out based on the loading condition of the steering knuckle under classical working conditions.By using the solid isotropic material penalty model,a topology optimization model with unit relative density as design variable,minimum flexibility as objective function and volume as constraint function is established for multiple working conditions.According to the results of topology optimization,the thickness of the key parts of the steering knuckle is taken as the design variable,the response surface approximation model is established in the sample space,and the steering knuckle parameters are optimized by using multi-objective genetic algorithm.The results of the two optimizations show that the mass of the aluminum alloy steering knuckle is reduced by 22.82％,the maximum stress of the optimized steering knuckle is reduced by 13.51％,36.80％,and 0.77％respectively under the conditions of crossing,pothole braking and steering.The optimization result meets the design requirements although the stresses while the condition of 4 times full load are slightly increased.Through the joint simulation of ANSYS and nCode,the optimized steering knuckle is verified by fatigue simulation based on the Miner linear fatigue cumulative damage calculation method.
Keywords：aluminum steering knuckletopology optimizationparameter optimizationfatigue simulation verification
Publication Date：2024-10-25
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 23-31 )