from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The frames of tank semi-trailers are usually made of carbon steel. However, this steel is susceptible to corrosion. During the exploitation of the semi-trailer, the protective paint layer is damaged, and the frame is exposed to the atmospheric effects, road salts, and other reagents used in cold weather conditions. According to this metal forming company AB Astra LT aims to design and produce a lightweight tank semi-trailer for the food industry products, the production of which stainless steel would be used. For this purpose, LDX 2101 duplex steel was chosen. This steel not only looks good aesthetically but also has high corrosion resistance and high mechanical strength.This paper presents the fatigue analysis of the frame of a tank semi-trailer. To accomplish this task the experimental fatigue tests of x-type specimen were conducted, and FEM simulations were performed. Experimental tests were used for the construction of the S-N curve of welded duplex steel. Later, this curve was used in numerical simulation. The FEM simulation was performed in several steps. First, the dynamic analysis of the whole semi-trailer frame with a tank was performed, imitating driving on an uneven paved asphalt road. This simulation allowed determining the most loaded section of the frame and the stress profile vs time at this section. The second model was the small portion of the most loaded part of the beam of the semi-trailer frame. Using the beam model, the experimentally determined S-N curve and the loading spectra were applied, and as a result, the total lifetime cycles were determined. Research has shown that the designed tank semi-trailer can travel up to 5.1 million km on uneven paved asphalt roads.
Keywords: Duplex steel, fatigue analysis, x-type specimen test© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.