초록
Structural failures, such as crack initiation, often arise near the bolted parts of the side member and trunnion bracket in some commercial vehicles. The purpose of this paper is: 1) establishment of a simple and practical bolted joint modelling technique and 2) determination of the key design variables for design improvement based on numerical experiments. Once the bolted joint modelling technique is established through experimental verification, the key design variables must be identified in order to alleviate the level of the stress concentration near the problem region. Numerical results indicate that the torsional rigidity of the frame cross-section should be increased to reduce the level of the maximum stress at the actual crack initiation location.