Outer tie rod is lighter than other, but there is the trend item weight and the number is increasing due to vehicle performance improvement. Thus, to improve vehicle fuel efficiency, weight lightening is essential. Therefore, this research performed the finite element analysis to investigate the structural performance of the outer tie rod for an electrical vehicle. This study was performed as the preliminary study for a lightweight design of the outer tie rod. The weight of outer tie rod was optimized by adopting the steel material and applying the trial and error method. The strengths due to durability and buckling should be considered in the structural design of an outer tie rod. Furthermore, the meta model-based optimization was applied to obtain its lightweight design, leading to 9 % weigh reduction.

The lightweight design of the outer tie rod installed on an electrical vehicle was achieved through material selection and optimization technique. The aluminum alloy Al6082M was selected as a steel-substitute, and its structural shape was optimized by applying metamodel-based optimization. In this process, finite element analysis was performed to predict the structural responses, such as buckling resistance and fatigue life. First, for an arbitrary base design made of steel, the structural responses were calculated. Then, the design variables were defined to find a lightweight design made of Al6082M. Secondly, metamodel-based optimization based on the kriging interpolation method was applied, leading to determination of an optimum design. The suggested optimum design has the minimum weight satisfying the critical design requirement. Finally, the numerical results of the buckling resistance and fatigue life were validated, through bucking and fatigue tests.

The foam monitor is equipment for extinguishing fires, particularly for oil tankers or cargo areas of the carrying vessel. This equipment is installed on the cargo tank deck. Generally, the projection distance is important for designing an extinguishment. On the other hand, the form monitors in current industry have been designed by trial and error rather than by numerical analysis method. Therefore, the shape design of the new form of monitor is needed. In this study, numerical analysis was performed to determine the projection distance prediction, and experiment results were used to make a comparison with the analysis results. The proposed method was applied to the modified form of a newly designed monitor in a company.