Formation of a Fatigue Test Track for a Light Commercial Vehicle According to Customer Correlation

Abstract

Fatigue life, one of the most critical and difficult parameters of the product design process, is verified by accelerated test by the manufacturers. For this reason, the manufacturers need specific test tracks and / or routes that are mathematically tested for fatigue effect. In this study, firstly the automotive usage of Turkish customers was determined by means of questionnaires in order to create an accelerated test track. Road tests were executed with a vehicle equipped with sensors on determined road map including 50 routes in Turkey. Data elaboration and detailing were executed on the raw data. For the stressed components such as leaf spring, driving shaft, steering wheel tie rod, Rain-flow cycle counting method was used. Despite that 2 axes Level-Crossing method was preferred for the non stressed components such as gear change ratio, breaking quantity etc. Data of mission profile belong to each sensor were handled by multiplying elaborated signals with Turkish customer automotive usage. The fatigue life effects were calculated using the weighted average method and an accelerated test track was created near the manufacturer corresponding to the fatigue effect of the Turkish mission profile. The usage results of passenger cars produced in an European country and costumer usage results of the light commercial vechile produced in Turkey were compared.

Keywords

• Automotive usage
• Test track
• Fatigue life analysis
• Cycle counting
• Weighted average index