Light Weight Research of Monocoque City Bus Body Frame

Abstract

The lightweight bus body frame can relieve coach mass for energy conservation and emissions reduction. With a monocoque city bus body frame as the research object, the finite element static analysis for the bus body frame is carried in ANSYS, considering four kinds of typical working conditions. By analyzing the calculation results, a lightweight body frame structure scheme is put forward. Through selecting AL6061 aluminum alloy and determining a steel aluminum connection mode, a steel-aluminum hybrid bus body frame structure is designed. Based on the steel-aluminum body frame finite element static analysis, the lightweight design for the monocoque bus body frame is achieved with a total mass reduction 10%, and the bus body safety requirements of strength and stiffness are also well met. It shows that the steel-aluminum body frame structure is reasonable and lightweight effect is obvious.