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Structural Analysis of Steering Knuckle For Weight Reduction
Structural Analysis of Steering Knuckle For Weight Reduction
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 4, Issue 6, June 2014)
I. INTRODUCTION
The steering knuckle on your vehicle is a joint that
allows the steering arm to turn the front wheels. The forces
exerted on this assembly are of cyclic nature as the steering
arm is turned to maneuver the vehicle to the left or to the
right and to the centre again.
Steering knuckles come in all shapes and sizes. Their
designs differ to fit all sorts of applications and suspension
types. However, they can be divided into two main types.
One comes with a hub and the other comes with a spindle.
In this investigation, steering knuckle was used as
component for study. Mass or weight reduction is
becoming important issue in car manufacturing industry.
Weight reduction will give substantial impact to fuel
efficiency, efforts to reduce emissions and therefore, save
environment. Weight can be reduced through several types
of technological improvements, such as advances in
materials, design and analysis methods, fabrication
processes and optimization techniques, etc. Steering
Knuckle is subjected to time varying loads during its
service life, leading to fatigue failure. Therefore, its design
is an important aspect in the product development cycle.
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Element
No. of Element
Nodes
Material
C3D10
55689
93694
M122-HSS180- max
Fig.2.Loading conditions
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VII. OBSERVATIONS
It is observed that the maximum displacement and the
maximum stress are induced in the same region as that in
the earlier geometry that means the stress pattern remains
same. The values are below the safe values.
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Initial
Design
Optimised
Design
Displacement
0.2 mm
0.21mm
Stress
232.7 MPa
223 MPa
Masss
2.91 Kg
2.6 Kg
%
Reduction
11 %
IX. CONCLUSION
Topology optimization can be used to reduce the weight
of existing knuckle component by 11% while meeting the
strength requirement, with limited design space given with
or without change in material properties. Therefore, the
overall weight of the vehicle can be reduced to achieve
savings in raw material costs and consequently processing
cost, as well as, improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon
emissions to help sustain the environment.
REFERENCES
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VIII. RESULT
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