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With the increase in the sensitivity of power steering system in the competitive environment, it becomes essential to provide a trouble free steering system to the customer. Usually major concerns faced in the performance of steering system are related to noise like vane pump whining noise and steering gearbox erratic rubbing noise. Even though selected steering pump and reservoir are quite compatible to the steering gearbox. With the series of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations and field tests, it is found that the cavitation phenomena in steering oil routing lines is responsible for the steering turning noise. In this paper, a developed systematic approach for problem detection to implementation of design solution is discussed.

Wheel end bearing is one of the critical components of the vehicle as it directly faces the road loads for harsh operating environment. Bearing being a precisely manufactured component and rotating at high speed, utmost care is required while assembling as well as during operation. In operating condition wheel end is directly exposed to outside environment making it prone to entry of contamination. This contamination if not prevented from entering into wheel end through proper sealing it would cause lubricant contamination and consequently bearing failure. Bearing replacement and overall wheel end service is time consuming activity reducing the turn out time of the vehicle. In wheel ends, one side is sealed with the help of seal while the other side is protected by cap and gasket. This cap-gasket interface is very critical from sealing perspective and utmost importance needs to be taken while designing the same.

The need to develop products faster and to have designs which are first time right have put enormous pressure on the product development timelines, thus making computer aided optimization one of the most important tool in achieving these targets. In this paper, a design of experiments (DOE) study is used, to gain an insight as to, how changes to different parameters of front suspension and steering of a passenger bus affect its kinematic properties and thus to obtain an optimized design in terms of handling parameters such as bump steer, percent ackermann error and lock to lock rotation angle of steering wheel. The conventional hit and trial method is time consuming and monotonous and still is an approximate method, whereas in design of experiments (DOE), a model is repeatedly run through simulations in a single setup, for various combinations of parameter settings.

Durability evaluation and Fatigue Life estimation for commercial vehicle Chassis and Cab is an important milestone during product design and development. Commonly used methods like endurance testing of vehicles on field, accelerated testing on four-posters or test tracks are time consuming and costly. On the other hand, virtual methods for durability evaluation give useful information early in design cycle and save considerable time and cost. They give flexibility to evaluate multiple design options and accommodate design changes early in product development cycle. Virtual testing methods commonly used in industry for durability evaluation of truck Chassis and Cab are combination of Multi-body Simulation (in software like Adams) and Fatigue Life estimation (in software like FEMFAT). These MBS models for truck are rigid or partly flexible and the simulation run-time increases drastically with increase in number of flexible parts in model.