HOLLOW ROADWHEEL DESIGN TO INCREASE PERFORMANCE AND REDUCE WEIGHT

Reducing roadwheel weight by replacing legacy steel designs with hollow, aluminum roadwheels could save 690 lb per vehicle (a 34% reduction). Hollow roadwheels offer greater load-carrying capacity, higher stiffness, improved corrosion resistance and no debris entrapment. Two hollow roadwheel configurations, bolt-together (HB) and welded (HW), were physically tested and exceeded the radial and lateral stiffness of the legacy steel (LS) roadwheel. The HW radial stiffness was 32% higher than LS and lateral was 65% higher. The HB radial stiffness was 14% higher than LS and lateral was 73% higher. Both hollow configurations offer significant weight reduction, better performance and can be implemented in the near-term based on their ease of manufacturing and high TRL. The HB configuration has already passed testing at discrete loads of 5G radial and 4G lateral (per roadwheel) with no cracks and acceptable levels of permanent deformation. The hollow roadwheel in its current configuration is designed for vehicles with 40-50 ton GVW, but with slight modification and increased weight could be used for vehicles exceeding 50 ton.

Citation: P. Hobe, “Hollow Roadwheel Design to Increase Performance and Reduce Weight”, In Proceedings of the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS), NDIA, Novi, MI, Aug. 10-12, 2021.