02 - Week - v1

Download as docx, pdf, or txt
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 12

Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Suspension arms transfer the load generated by the vehicle’s wheels to the chassis. So it is
important to consider suspension arms in chassis analysis as displayed in Figure 1.
In this lesson, you will learn how to add suspension arms to a chassis model in SpaceClaim.
The process of importing coordinate points and creating a 3D sketch is demonstrated.

Figure 1 Suspension Arms in Chassis.

1 Adding Suspension Arms to Chassis Using Ansys SpaceClaim


In this chapter, we will add the suspension arms to the chassis model applying two different
approaches:
1- By using the imported coordinate points
2- Then by 3D sketching.
The suspension arm coordinate points can be imported with in SpaceClaimed as a txt file.
We can go to assembly tab and select the file option as displayed in Figure 2.

1
2

Figure 2 How SpaceClaim read point.

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

SpaceClaim reads the points in zxy format as seen on the screen as displayed in Figure 3.
The polyline function creates specific points within the model. You can download the .txt file
here.

Figure 3 Coordinates of the Suspension Arm.


Once imported the three points can be seen within the model as displayed in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Imported the three points.


To add the suspension arms, we can simply select the beam profile with which we wish to
create the arms and click on the create option now as displayed in Figure 5.
2

2
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 5 Create the suspension arms.


By clicking onto the imported points and the chassis points the beams are added within
them thus we can similarly create the uprights and lower wishbone as displayed in .

1
2

Figure 6 Uprights and lower wishbone.


Now we can select the created upper wishbones beams and move them to a new
component as displayed in Figure 7 and Figure 8.

1
2

3 4 5
Figure 7 Select the created upper wishbones beams.

3
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Renaming it as right hand side front upper arm based on its location on the chassis as
displayed in Figure 9.

Figure 8 Move created upper wishbones beams to a new component.

2
1

Figure 9 Renaming new components.


The name can simply be copy-pasted for members within the component as displayed in
Figure 10. Renaming each component would make it simpler to create joints while adding
connections during the model setup.

Figure 10 The name is copy-pasted.


Similarly we can move the beams of the uprights and lower arm to a new component and
rename them as displayed in Figure 11.

4
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 11 Renamed all new components.


We will now add the rear suspension arms by first creating their geometry and assigning our
beam profile to their sketch. For this let’s create a plane along the yz axis of the imported
geometry as displayed in Figure 12.

1
2
3

Figure 12 Create a plane along the yz axis.


The plane can be moved precisely to front upright location by using the move tool as
displayed in Figure 13.

Figure 13 Move the plane to front upright.

5
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

To draw the rear suspension arms, we can first align the our geometry to look directly at the
plane and then click on the sketch tool as displayed in Figure 14.

1
Figure 14 Look directly at yz axis.
With the line feature, we can approximately create a point on this plane and then click on
3D view to sketch in the 3D space. Connecting the created point to the chassis at the front
and rear end as displayed in Figure 15 and Figure 16.

Figure 15 Line feature.


In the same way we can draw the lower suspension arms by creating a point on the plane
and then connecting it to the chassis ends as displayed in Figure 18Figure 17.

Figure 16 3D view to sketch in the 3D space.

6
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 17 Front suspension.

Figure 18 Lower suspension arms.


To move the joining points of the suspension arms at correct height, we can select a point
created on the plane and use the move tool to shift them up to the height of the front arm
as displayed in Figure 19.

1
Figure 19 Suspension arms at correct height.

7
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 20 Shift them up.


Once both the points are at the correct location the upright can be sketched by joining the
two points with the line tool as displayed in Figure 21. We can modify any 3D geometry and
hence add components directly to the model.

Figure 21 Correct location.


To convert the sketched part to beam model, we simply select all the members and click on
our previously created profile as displayed in Figure 22.

2 3

Figure 22 Select all created profile.

8
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

In this way custom cross-sections are assigned to the created suspension arms. To mirror
the front and rear arms to the left-hand side, we first create a plane in the middle of the
chassis geometry as displayed in Figure 23.

Figure 23 YZ plane.
Then using the mirror tool by selecting the created plane as the mirroring plane. Now by just
clicking on to the right hand side suspension arms, they can be directly mirrored onto the
left hand side as displayed in Figure 24.

Figure 24 Mirrored arms.


Noting here that the mirrored members appear within the component of the base geometry
and not as a new component. Therefore each mirrored beam member has now moved to its
own component and renamed based on the location. To add the springs to the uprights, we
need to split the rear upright beams into two equal parts. For this we can click on split curve
feature in the sketch toolbar and then select upright. Thus selected beam is split into two
separate beams as displayed in Figure 25.

9
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 25 Split into two separate beams.


Similarly we can split the beams at rear bulkhead for setting up the boundary conditions in
ANSYS mechanical.

Figure 26 Split beams at rear bulkhead.


Now in the structure tree we can see all the members have been moved to their separate
components and have their respective names.

Figure 27 Structure tree.


Currently the overall model consists of the suspension members and the chassis members
which are geometrically connected but still common vertices are not shared within their
geometries. As we would like the chassis members to be imported into mechanical as one
part, we hide all the other components and click on the shared tool in the workbench tab.

10
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

2
1

Figure 28 Shared component for the chassis.


Clicking on the green tick all the common vertices are thus shared for the chassis and their
members are converted to one part. Similarly for suspension arms and uprights, we first
hide the chassis and unhide all the suspensions then click on the share tool as displayed in .

Figure 29 Unhide all suspensions.


Follow the same steps to share common vertices of the uprights. Thus the suspension arms
can be added to the chassis geometry and the model is ready to be imported for mechanical
analysis as displayed in .

11
Department of Mechanical Engineering Advanced Vehicle Engineering – ANSYS

Figure 30 Ready to mechanical analysis.

2 Highlight
 Preparing the geometry in SpaceClaim
 Importing Coordinates into the model.
 Creating beams using points.
 Creating 3D sketches in geometry.

12

You might also like