Abstract
This study proposes a structural design method for the upper control arm installed at the rear side of a SUV. The weight of control arm can be reduced by applying the design and material technologies. In this research, the former includes optimization technology, and the latter the technologies for selecting aluminum as a steel-substitute material. Strength assessment is the most important design criterion in the structural design of a control arm. At the proto design stage of a new control arm, FE (finite element) analysis is often utilized to predict its strength. This study considers the static strength in the optimization process. The inertia relief method for FE analysis is utilized to simulate the static loading conditions. According to the classification of structural optimization, the structural design of a control arm is included in the category of shape optimization. In this study, the kriging interpolation method is adopted to obtain the minimum weight satisfying the strength constraint. Optimum designs are obtained by ANSYS WORKBENCH and the in-house program, EXCEL-kriging program. The optimum results determined from the in-house program are compared with those of ANSYS WORKBENCH.