Reduced weight automotive brake pedal test & analysis

Abstract

Currently, automotive industry continues to strive for light weight vehicle for improving fuel efficiency and emission reduction. It is crucial to design vehicles with an optimum weight for a better performance of the car. In this field, which has boundaries with fixed standards and regulations, manufacturers continue to work on characteristics, structures and types of the material to develop new components, which have same safety specifications but cheaper and lighter than current products. In this study, the strength analysis of a new design of an automotive brake pedal is presented. In order to reduce the weight, an alternative design, plasma welded two parts is studied instead of a monoblock gas arc welded brake pedal arm. The estimation of the design life of both current and the new pedal, a linear static stress analysis was performed via finite element method. Here, critical regions where the stress concentration occurs were determined. Stress-life method was used to estimate the fatigue life of the brake pedal. Based on the analysis results, design enhancement solutions were applied to extend the life of the new brake pedal. The computational analysis of the fatigue life of the pedal is validated utilizing a custom made test setup.