Análise estrutural do chassi do protótipo “Velho monge” da equipe EcoOpala de eficiência energética

Abstract

The present paper aims to design and proceed a structural analysis of a vehicle frame.The chassis is destined to the ultra-energy-efficient vehicle called “Velho Monge” of the EcoOpala Team, which participates of Shell Eco-marathon Brazil. The chassis is the main component of a vehicle, responsible to suport every dynamic or static load, thus being responsible for the security of passengers. The software SolidEdge ST8 was used to design the chassis. The structural analysis was accomplished by two methods. The first is the finite element method that was accomplished through the software SolidWorks, where the grid convergence study was performed to reduce the analysis time with great final results. The second method was experimental analysis of the chassis. Performing the experiment, support brackets were built to fix the chassis in the same fixing points of the finite element analysis and the same loads were applied. Posteriorly, an analysis was made in order to compare the results of both methods. The final studies were concluded that the chassis do not showed the stiffness requirements of the project, thus were presented design changes as suggested.