New bogie suspension concept

There is always a desire to develop and offer the best and most protable products on the market. This master thesis in mechanical engineering investigates the possibility to reduce the costs of the bogie suspension on Volvo's articulated haulers. The so called stays in the existing bogie suspension are significant components that connects the axle housings to the frame. The existing solution consists of stays that are expensive, heavy and time consuming to manufacture. Concepts in CAD will be compared to each other and and all concept will be evaluated in more detail. Totally five concepts were generated and modelled. They were compared regarding strains on rubber parts, required stay dimensions, collision between different parts and axle movements. Two proceeded concepts for further development after the evaluation and two new concepts were generated. A new comparison was made with additional tests. Simulations conrmed that it was only possible to proceed with one of the two developed concepts because one of the concepts would require large dimensions to manage the applied forces. The selected concept was redesigned and adapted to be as realizable as possible. Bushing kits, reinforcements, and detailed designs of parts were considered. Simple FEMcalculations was only made on parts that wasn't depending on components on the frame since these calculations would be too advanced and time consuming. The resulting concept needs more work to be realizable since there are geometry optimization on molded components left as well as advanced calculations when integrating the solution on the frame. A weight loss ofapproximately 95kg and a cost reduction of 3700SEK was made. Further investigations has to be done to determine if it's possible to obtain a positive business case with the new bogie suspension