STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ASSESSMENT OF A PROTOTYPE VEHICLE UPPER ARM FOR THE SHELL ECO-MARATHON USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
Keywords:
Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM), Highly Efficient, Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Topology Optimization, Safety Factor (SF)Abstract
The Shell Eco-marathon (SEM) event is a renowned international competition that focuses on bringing university students around the world to design and build vehicles that can achieve the highest possible energy efficiency. Considering that, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) has allocated its resources to help its automotive engineering students in building highly efficient prototype electric and urban internal combustion engine category vehicles. To achieve so, one key aspect must be considered, which is the weight of the vehicle. In this report, structural analysis was performed on the upper arm using Ansys Student Finite Element Analysis (FEA) under a static bending load condition. The objective is to determine its suitability for the SEM event in terms of strength before committing to topology optimisation. FEA results showed that the upper arm yielded a maximum Safety Factor of 15, and a minimum Safety Factor (SF) of 1.11 and 1.17 for braking and cornering loads, respectively. This signifies that the current material and design is marginally sufficient in terms of safety allowance under both static and SEM dynamic load conditions.
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