Bending Deflection Analysis of a Semi-Trailer Chassis by Using Symmetric Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Abstract

In this paper, a simple approach is presented for the calculation of bending deflection of a semi trailer chassis. The 3D model of the chassis is used to determine the moment of inertia of the cross section function and then the mathematical model of the chassis is presented as a Euler Bernoulli Beam which has the variable cross section. Different loading conditions coming from the semi trailer test procedures are applied. The bending deflections of the semi trailer chassis are numerically calculated by using the Symmetric Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SSPH) method. The first time the performance of the SSPH method for the fourth order non-homogeneous variable coefficents linear boundary value problems is evaluated. For the calculations different number of terms in the TSEs are employed when the number of nodes in the problem domain increases. The comparisons are made with the results of experiments. It is observed that the SSPH method has the conventional convergence properties yields smaller L2 error. Finally, the approach presented here may be used and found reliable for the calculation of deflection of the semi trailer chassis before the release of detail design.