Estudo de viabilidade técnica sobre o uso de ligas de alumínio na fabricação de eixos traseiros trativos para aplicação em veículos comerciais

Abstract

The development of new commercial vehicles have as one of its major goals increase the operational energetic efficiency or fuel consumption decrease. The vehicle´s mass reduction is one of the most direct ways to achieve this goal. The vehicle´s axles usually have its structure made of ferrous materials due to its high strength and low cost. Alternative materials with lower density and higher strength are continuosly researched and developed. Among these materials the aluminum compared with ferrous materials appears as an interesting alternative to replace ferrous alloys in some applications. The aluminum have its density significantly smaller than ferrous materials opening possibilities to significant mass reductions. In this study were performed an evaluation through the comparison of aluminum alloys and ferrous materials on different load conditions and were presented the replacement gains for each load situation. It was evaluated possibility to replace ferrous materials with aluminum alloys on commercial vehicles rear axle structures through finite element analysis as a step on a new product validation. The study results show that is possible to use the aluminum in commercial vehicle axles with mass reduction ranging from 1,1% to 61,0% without loss of structural properties.