Wheel Suspension Ball Pin Layout for Lower Axle Height
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing weight of electric vehicles and their higher profiles due to battery installations are causing the wheel suspension to dominate the hood height in motor vehicles, leading to a need for a more compact wheel suspension design.
Innovation Solution
The wheel suspension design features an inclined clamping hole for the ball pin, allowing inward and downward displacement, reducing the overall height and enabling a smaller strut dome passage for increased strength, along with a gooseneck-shaped pivot bearing arm and a skewed spring strut to minimize height, and optionally using a single or dual wishbone configuration for articulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If the wheel suspension uses a conventional vertical ball pin arrangement, then the structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but the axle height is increased making the wheel suspension taller
Solution Approach 1:
The ball pin is arranged at an angle rather than purely vertically, introducing a transverse dimension to the ball pin orientation. This angular arrangement causes the ball to undergo both inward transverse displacement and downward vertical deflection, thereby reducing axle height while maintaining structural functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The clamping hole is designed with asymmetric inclination relative to the vertical axis, creating an angled path for the ball pin. This asymmetric geometry enables the ball to move both inward and downward during operation, achieving height reduction without requiring additional components.
2Length of moving object
If the ball pin is arranged vertically, then the clearance between pivot bearing arm and wheel arch can be larger, but the overall wheel suspension height is increased
Solution Approach 1:
By inclining the ball pin arrangement, the patent utilizes both vertical and transverse dimensions simultaneously. The ball's motion path combines downward deflection with inward displacement, achieving height reduction while maintaining adequate clearance through spatial optimization.
3Strength
If the strut dome passage is made larger to accommodate full ball deflection, then the wheel suspension can accommodate greater movement, but the structural strength is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The inclined ball pin arrangement redirects a portion of the ball's deflection motion into the transverse dimension. This reduces the vertical deflection distance the ball must travel, allowing for a smaller strut dome passage that maintains both structural strength and adequate movement capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A wheel suspension for a wheel of an axle of a motor vehicle, including a pivot bearing supporting the wheel, which is articulated in an upper link level via at least one link on the motor vehicle body. The pivot bearing includes a pivot bearing arm on which the link is mounted by a ball joint having a ball pin, the ball pin is aligned extending in the vertical direction of the vehicle and the ball of the ball pin is received in a receptacle on the link side and the shaft of the ball pin is received in a receptacle on the pivot bearing arm side. The receptacle on the pivot bearing arm side is formed as a longitudinally slotted clamping hole.