Criteria for light-weight design of weels

: Grubisic, V.; Fischer, G.

Abstract
Decisive prerequisites for the fatigue life approval and design optimisation of wheels are the operational loading conditions and their resulting stresses. With help of the biaxial wheel test facility the proof of fatigue strength under service conditions can be established in a reliable and economic way. It takes into consideration all decisive influences resulting from design, stiffness of adjacent components, material properties, manufacturing process, and specific service conditions. The test procedure is applied and accepted by well known vehicle and wheel producers for commercial vehicles and passenger cars and serves as a test specification for wheel suppliers. Existing simplified test principles like rotating bending and rim roll tests are still applicable if above mentioned influences are taken into account by individual measurements in order to adjust the test requirements. Fixed test requirements [21 can only roughly indicate the fatigue life, but they are not reliable enoug h to detect all weak areas and to avoid overdimensionings. The development and durability life approval of sophisticated light-weight components like wheels, hubs and bearings require a realistic simulation of all decisive service stresses by load program tests.