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Fatigue failure prediction of press fitted parts subjected to a cyclic loading condition by finite element methods
Author(s) -
KANG W. J.,
KIM A. K.,
KIM G. H.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.887
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1460-2695
pISSN - 8756-758X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-2695.2007.01188.x
Subject(s) - fretting , finite element method , aluminium , structural engineering , materials science , aluminium alloy , ball (mathematics) , deformation (meteorology) , alloy , engineering , composite material , mathematics , mathematical analysis
The lower control arm is one of the most important components and constrains the longitudinal and vertical movements of the wheel relative to the vehicle. Recently, aluminium alloy has become a constituent material of the arm instead of steel in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle. As a cyclic external load is applied to the ball joint of the arm, the contact force between the steel bush housing and the aluminium arm joined by the press fitting varies through the deformation of the rubber bush. The oscillatory contact force between these components could determine the life of the aluminium alloy arm. Indeed, the failure of the arm was observed at the bush mount where fretting is expected. In this study, nonlinear finite element simulations were carried out to investigate the cause of the failure. As a result, it turned out that the failure of the mount was associated with the fretting introduced by the press fitting and the cyclic stress due to the oscillatory contact force by external cyclic loads. In addition, the failure location and lifetime of the aluminium alloy arm were predicted based on a damage analysis.