Optimum Design of Brake Pedal for Trucks Using Structural Optimization and Design of Experiment Techniques

Along with the recent developments and innovations in the automotive and heavy vehicle industry, the performance requirements such as fuel efficiency, emissions reduction, low manufacturing cost, etc., keep in-creasing day by day. In order to have a place in the world market, it is es-sential to meet these requirements. Along with the other strategies, vehi-cle weight reduction is one of the most critical strategies in the heavy ve-hicle industry. This paper aims to obtain an optimal design of a truck brake pedal by employing topology and shape optimization. To accom-plish this goal, the material used for an existing brake pedal is unchanged as this study focuses on reducing the weight of the existing brake pedal without material substitution. The rough dimensions of the brake pedal are designed by inspiring the results of the topology optimization. To de-termine the precise dimensions of the brake pedal design of experiment (DOE) and shape optimization studies are conducted respectively. Wall and flange thickness are defined as variable parameters for the DOE. Three different values are selected for each design parameter. Stress analyses are conducted by using the finite element method for nine cases. As a result of the studies mentioned so far, two responses are obtained. In order to obtain minimum weight value, which is possible shape optimiza-tion is performed by using fmincon function in MATLAB®. As a result of the study, the mass reduction of the brake pedal is %50, and it is shown that the developed method can be used to design a lightweight truck brake pedal.