A novel approach for design and analysis of an all-terrain vehicle roll cage

Abstract A roll cage is a structural framework of an All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) which provides three-dimensional protection to the driver in case of sudden impact or rollover accidents and also to mount the various subsystems of the vehicle. Engineering world expects to satisfy the levied rules with substantiated quality of ATV which is compact in design, minimal members, lightweight, and high strength. The dynamically well-balanced ATV requires improvement of weldment strength and fatigue life of roll cage members to protect the driver and overcome terrain impacts. The objective of this work is to formulate a conceptual design using Solidworks and analysis by using Ansys for defined constraints like front, side, rear, and rollover impact on the roll cage of material of duplex S32205 steel with completion of weldment post-processing methods. The analysed set of data inputs experimentally made weld joint by Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding under optimal process parametric condition and test on weldment is conducted for this study. This work involves post-processing method in which we accomplished good strength by utilizing the technique of shot peening where the small spherical shots were bombarded on the welded joints. As an outcome, we had achieved considerable decrease in residual compressive stresses on the weldment areas and increased its surface as well as fatigue strength. Before the strengthening techniques were put through, the weldment areas were spotted for inducting the shot peening method that enhances its strength further. To ensure the definiteness, test trials were done and value sets were taken for Finite Element Analysis (FEA) on optimal model with appropriate material. This proposed work provides the well-studied and optimal design approach on ATV roll cage to improve its acceleration by better weight reduction and enriched strength ratio for a long duration. Therefore, the weldment of roll cage which is shot peened has the better strength than that of unpeened sample.