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The present investigation deals with the design and shape optimization of the steel insert used in the hand brake valve to withstand the impact load during brake off condition. This hand brake valve is used in the vehicles for parking brake application. It consists of a steel insert with a helical coil spring for locking and unlocking of a lever during brake on and off condition. Also a torsion spring with a cam mechanism is used for opening and closing of a hand brake valve. When the lever is locked the flexible elastic object (torsion spring) stores the mechanical energy when it is twisted. When it is unlocked (braking off) it exerts a force (actually torque) in the opposite direction, proportional to the angle it is twisted. During the braking off condition the steel insert gains the angular velocity from the stored mechanical energy of the torsion spring.

The present investigation deals with the failure load prediction during the wrong procedure of unlocking the hand brake valve. The design of the hand brake valve top cover should have adequate strength such that the driver cannot move the lever without lifting the sleeve during brake off condition. The objective of this work is to design the top cover with higher strength such that it requires more load during wrong procedure of unlocking the valve. In this study, the nonlinear analysis is conducted (which includes three types of nonlinearities namely material, geometry and contact) in order to study the strength of the top cover during abuse condition. The design adequacy of the top cover is estimated by elasto plastic analysis. The maximum load carrying capacity of the top cover is determined from Force Vs Deformation plot which is good in agreement with the experimental results. Various design iterations are carried out to propose the appropriate design.