Stress analysis of electric bus chassis using finite element method

Abstract

This paper discusses stress analysis of electric bus ladder chassis. The objective of this paper is to obtain an optimum design that has less weight but strong enough to receive load from passenger and body of bus. The chassis is subjected to load which are static, dynamic and cyclic loading. Therefore, the chassis should have good properties that can withstand to those types of load. During the travel, chassis are excited by road roughness, engine, transmission and more. Stress and displacement can be obtained by using finite element method. Simulation was carried out by using commercial finite element packages Abaqus in order to find stress distribution and displacement of chassis. The material used were AISI 4130 Alloy steel, AISI A514 GRADE B Alloy steel and Grey cast iron, with variations in thickness of 2 mm, 4 mm and 6 mm. The model with the AISI 4130 Alloy steel with 6 mm in thickness was chosen as the optimum model due to the lowest stress and displacement among all materials and thicknesses.