An Energy-Based Anti-Fatigue Optimization Design Method of Welded Rear Axle Housing in a Mining Dump Truck

In order to improve the life expectancy of the rear axle housing in a mining dump truck, an energy-based anti-fatigue optimization design method was presented in this paper. The finite element model of rear axle housing was constructed and testified by the experimental data. The load history was obtained through multi-body dynamics analysis, and the multi-load step nonlinear finite element analysis was carried out to obtain the stress-strain response under different working conditions. The strain energy density method was used to evaluate the fatigue life of rear axle housing, and the results showed that its fatigue endurance was insufficient. Then, the lifetime of the most dangerous point was taken as the optimization objective, and the different plate thickness was considered as the design variables. The approximate model was constructed based on the response surface method, and the anti-fatigue optimization design was finally conducted on the bearing structure through the multi-island genetic algorithm. The minimum fatigue life of optimized rear axle housing was doubled.