Light Weight Lower Control Arm for C-segment Passenger Car

The growing demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles to reduce energy consumption and air pollution is a challenge for the automotive industry.

The characteristic properties of aluminum, high strength, stiffness to weight ratio, good formability, good corrosion resistance and recycling potential make it the ideal candidate to replace heavier materials (i.e. steel) in the car to respond to the weight reduction demand within the automotive industry. It has been estimated that for every 10% of weight eliminated from vehicle’s total weight, fuel economy improves by 7%.

This also means that for every kilogram of weight reduced in vehicles, there is about 20kg of carbon dioxide reduction. Therefore, in this project an aluminum lightweight front lower control arm has been developed using casting processing route and its performance has been  investigated to determine the mechanical properties of the parts. In this work, the new concept design of cast lower arm is employed. Then, the topology optimization process is conducted to get the optimized shape based on the target of 20% weight reduction.

The final optimized design is evaluated with structural strength analysis to analyze component performance in a vehicle. The parts that produced have a lightweight, high strength and good corrosion resistance and suitable for C-segment passenger car.

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