A study on finite element analysis of electric bus frame for lightweight design

Abstract

The air pollution becomes a risk to health with the increasingly growing of car ownership in China. Due to the increase of energy crisis and environmental pollutant, the electric vehicle is becoming a promising transport in the urban area. However, the drawback of the electric vehicle lies in the endurance of the vehicle battery. Therefore, the lightweight design which adopts both the structural steel and the aluminum alloy can reduce the weight of the vehicle body extending the battery life between charges. In this paper, we used a finite element analysis (FEA) method for the lightweight optimization of the electric bus frame. Four driving condition (full load bending condition, torsional condition, emergency braking and emergency steering) were considered for the analysis. By changing the structure of bus frame, the weight of the bus reduced while the mechanical property improved under the adopted driving condition.