Analysis of Surface Gradient Decarburization in Automotive Front Axle Bending Based on n-Order Shear Deformation Theory
During the hot forging and heat treatment processes of the automotive front axle,de-carburization occured on the surfaces of the material,leading to change in the mechanics properties of the decarburized layer with varying depths.This phenomenon significantly impacted the bending per-formance of the front axle under load.A segmented function was used to create a graded variation in surface functionality on both sides of the axle,resulting in a simply supported sandwich beam with uniform internal properties.The bending behavior of the beam under two-point loading was investigated using the n-order shear deformation theory.The displacement field control equation was derived using the principle of virtual work,The Navier analytical method was used to obtain the bending behavior of a beam under simply supported boundary conditions,and compared with examples in the literature.The results indicate that the n-order shear deformation theory has good accuracy and reliability.The deflection and rotation of the beam increase with the increase of the decarburization indexk,and reach quasi-steady state at k≈10.When the depth of decarburization is greater than 5 mm,the stress caused by the bending of the beam is more strongly influenced by the thickness of the decarburized layer than by the height change.When the depth of decarburization on both sides is asymmetric,the physical neutral surface migrates.The bending deflection and rotation of the beam decrease with the increase of thick-ness and width,but the change in beam thickness has a greater impact.
automotive front axledecarburizationgraded sandwich beamn-order shear de-formation theorybending analysis