• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.139-142
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• 2003

In this study, casting/forging process was used to produce an aluminum lower control arm for automobiles. Firstly, casting experiments were carried out to get an enhanced preform for forging the lower control arm. In the casting experiment, the effect of an additive, Sr, on the mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation and the microstructure of a cast preform were investigated. And a finite element analysis was peformed to determine an optimal configuration of the cast preform. Lastly, a forging experiment was carried out to make the final product of aluminum lower control arm by using the above cast preform. In the casting experiments, when 0.025% Sr was added into molten A356, the maximum values of tensile strength and elongation of the cast preform were obtained. In the forging experiment, It was confirmed that the optimal configuration of a cast preform predicted by FE analysis was very useful. The cast/forged product using designed preform was made without any defects.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.613-618
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• 2008

As one way of cost innovation and weight saving of the automobile, the one-piece typed lower control arm was developed for the purpose of replacing the box typed lower control arm. In order to overcome less buckling strength of the one-piece typed lower control arm, the design parameters such as the high strength steel grade, the thickness and the shape of main panel were optimized based on Taguchi method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.69-75
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• 2009

Recently developed automotive components are getting lighter providing a higher fuel efficiency and performance. Following the current trend, this study proposes a structural optimization method for the lower control arm installed at the front side of a Vehicle. Lightweight design of lower control arm can be achieved through design and material technology. In this research, the shape of lower control arm was determined by applying the optimization technology and aluminum was selected as a steel-substitute material. Strength performance is the most important design requirement in the structural design of a control arm. This study considers the static strength in the optimization process. For the optimum design, the durability analysis is performed to predict its fatigue life. In this study, the kriging interpolation method is adopted to obtain the minimum weight satisfying the strength constraint. Optimum designs are obtained by the in-house program, EXCEL-Kriging. Also, based on the optimum model obtained for the static strength, the optimization of Index of Fatigue Durability is carried out to get th optimum fatigue performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.376-380
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• 2010

The capability of automotive suspension system depends on steering safety of knuckle and lower control arm. In this study, light weight is applied with lower arm by the material of aluminium alloy. Distributed stress, fatigue life and proper vibration are analyzed with multiple loads happened by automobile. The durability of lower arm can be verified by the result of structural analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2003

In order to improve the fatigue lift of a lower control arm in the vehicle suspension, a new shape optimization procedure is presented. In this approach, the shape control point concept is introduced to reduce the numbers of shape design variables. Also, the two-level orthogonal way is employed to evaluate the design sensitivity of fatigue life with respect to those shape design variables, because the analytical design sensitivity information is not directly supplied from the commercial CAE softwares. In this approach, only the six design variables are used to approximate the shape of lower control arm. Then, performed are only 10 fatigue life analyses including the baseline design, 8 DOE models and the final design. The final design, the best combination obtained from the sensitivity information, can maximize the fatigue lift nearly two times as that of the baseline design, while reducing the 12 percentage of weight than it.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.5 s.248
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• pp.602-608
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• 2006

Vehicle components such as lower control arm are usually affected by heat during the welding process. As a result, residual stress is generated, which has much effect on mechanical performances such as crashworthiness and durability. In this study, the residual stress in lower control arm has been measured by the x-ray diffraction method and been analyzed by finite element methods. Heat transfer during seam weld process has been calculated and used in calculating thermal deformation with temperature dependent material properties. High residual stress has been found at vertical wall both by measurement and simulation. The simulation also showed the residual stress re-distribution when the component is subjected to cyclic loading condition.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.50-58
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• 1994

To examine the residual stress field resulting from stamping process for the lower control arm of a car, the explicit finite element analysis is performed for the stamping process by way of the ABAQUS Explicit. The residual stress is obtained in terms of the Von Mises stress and other parameters such as equivalent plastic strain, the change of blank thickness, the final configuration of the blank and the spring back effect are also considered. Moreover, discussed is the convergence of the explicit FEM versus the punch sped and the element discretization

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.94-101
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• 2003

Recently, miniaturization and weight reduction is getting more attention due to various benefits in automotive components design. It is a trend that the design of experiment(DOE) and statical design method are frequently used for optimization. In this research, the safety of lower control arm is evaluated according to its material change form S45C to A16061 for the reduction of arm's weight. The variance analysis on the basis of structure analysis and DOE is applied to the lower control m. We have proposed a statistical design model to evaluate the effect of structural modification by performing the practical multi-objective optimization considering mass, stress and deflection.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2008

Recently developed automotive components are of lightweight nature, providing automobiles with a high fuel efficiency and performance. In response to those trends of car developments, this study proposes a structural optimization method for the lower control ann. Lightweight design of lower control am can be achieved through two approaches: design and material technology. In this research, the former includes optimization technology, and the latter the technologies for selecting aluminum as a steel-substitute material. In this research, the design of experiments(DOE) built in ANSYS WORKBENCH are utilized to determine the optimum shape of a Lower Control Arm. And optimum design is compared first model and reduced design variable model that considered sensitivity using orthogonal array.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.119-125
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• 2005

The current automotive is seeking the improvement of performance, the prevention of environmental pollution and the saving of energy resources according to miniaturization and lightweight of the components. And the variance analysis on the basis of structure analysis and DOE is applied to the lower control am. We have proposed a statistical design model to evaluate the effect of structural modification by performing the practical multi-objective optimization considering weight, stress and fatigue lift. The lower control arm is performed the fatigue analysis using the load history of real road test. The design model is determined using the optimization of acquired load history with the fatigue characteristic. The characteristic function is made use of the optimization according to fatigue characteristics to consider constrained function in the optimization of DOE. The structure optimization of a lower control arm according to fatigue characteristics is performed. And the optimized design variable is D=47 m, T=36mm, W=12 mm. In the real engineering problem of considering many objective functions, the multi-objective optimization process using the mathematical programming and the characteristic function is derived an useful design solution.