Theoretical Analysis of Fatigue Strength of a Double-Deck Bus Body Using FEM

Abstract

Modern design techniques primarily consist of finite element analysis of the vehicle body in a computational media. In this study, an actual double-deck bus body of domestic production has been modeled in three-dimensions by means of IDEAS program in order to calculate its fatigue strength. In other words, an approximation algorithm has been developed to obtain service loads. The effects of dynamic and static loads on the bus body have been calculated and included to the FEM analysis. As a new approximation technique, during the service life of a vehicle under dynamic loads (straight good road, straight bad road, cornering bad road and singular obstacle road) arising from the road conditions as taking into account, load spectrum has been constituted. In the design spectrum that has been utilized in our calculations, considering the equivalence damage effect rule, instead of using straight good road conditions, other fifty percent of forces that have been mentioned above, accepted as hundred percent of dynamic and static forces caused by bad road conditions acting on the bus body. As a result of this study, the calculated results have been compared to the theoretical and experimental data taken from literature review. It can be seen that this approximation technique that we used in our calculations can be used for this kind of fatigue analysis of vehicle components or bodies.