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Fracture Characteristics of Fatigue Failure of a Vehicle’s Ductile Iron Steering

Knuckle

Article  in  Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention · August 2009

DOI: 10.1007/s11668-009-9245-y

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J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328
DOI 10.1007/s11668-009-9245-y
CASE HISTORY—PEER-REVIEWED
Fracture Characteristics of Fatigue Failure of a Vehicle’s Ductile
Iron Steering Knuckle
G. K. Triantafyllidis Æ A. Antonopoulos Æ
A. Spiliotis Æ S. Fedonos Æ D. Repanis
Submitted: 20 November 2008 / Accepted: 5 March 2009 / Published online: 15 May 2009
Ó ASM International 2009
Abstract The steering knuckle, being a part of the
vehicle’s steering and suspension system, undergoes time-
varying loading during its service life. Since it is connected
to the steering parts and strut assembly from one side and
the wheel hub assembly from the other, it has complex
restraint and constraint conditions and tolerates a combi-
nation of loads. In addition, parameters such as internal
defects, stress concentrations and gradients, surface finish,
and residual stresses can have considerable influence while
designing for fatigue. A vehicle with a 2.500 cm3 (2.5 L)
volume engine was being driven during a rainy day in a
congested road at a speed of about 10 km/h, when suddenly
the vehicle lost its orientation and crushed over a parked
vehicle on the right side of the road without any human
injury. The driver insisted that he heard an intense noise of
a metal undergoing rupture from the front right side of the
vehicle’s suspension system and immediately lost control
of the vehicle. The producing company of the vehicle on
the other hand, after on-site visual inspection, came to the
conclusion that due to the driver’s error the vehicle turned
to the right and as a consequence of the crash the steering
knuckle was broken into two parts. Failure analysis
G. K. Triantafyllidis (&)
A. Antonopoulos
A. Spiliotis

S. Fedonos
Faculty of Engineering, Chemical Engineering Department,
Laboratory of Materials Technology, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, 540 24 Thessaloniki, Region of Central
Macedonia, Greece
e-mail: gktrian@cheng.auth.gr
URL: http://cheng.auth.gr
D. Repanis
Hitiria Makedonias SA, Sindos, Thessaloniki, Region of Central
Macedonia, Greece
conducted as presented in this article reveals the mecha-
nism of fracture mainly due to bending fatigue.
Keywords Steering knuckle
Ductile iron

Fracture (ductile-brittle)
Fractography
Fatigue
Introduction
Steering knuckles are very crucial components of the
vehicle’s steering and suspension system. In fact, the
steering knuckle acts as a link between the steering and
suspension systems. Any failure in these components
results immediately in loss of the orientation of the vehicle.
Related also to its velocity human injuries or even loss of
lives are with no doubt expected due to inevitable crashes.
The materials for the construction of steering knuckles in
the vehicle industry are forged steel, aluminum alloys, cast
steel, and cast iron. In this case, the construction material is
ductile iron (DI). Figure 1(a) shows a drawing of the
position of the knuckle in the steering system. The outer tie
rod is connected to the steering knuckle that actually turns
the front wheels. The steering knuckle has an upper and
lower ball joint that pivots on and creates the geometry of
the steering axis. The importance of the knuckle’s position
makes it an integral part of the steering system, which
undergoes repeated bending loads around the area of fail-
ure. In Fig. 1(b) the arrows indicate the point, in a drawing
and a real knuckle, where the fracture occurred. The frac-
ture point is located at the end of the T-junction
reinforcement of the casting designed to accept loads
imposed by the connection of the outer tie rod to the
knuckle. The fracture happened in ambient temperature.
The small broken part of the knuckle exhibited excellent
fracture characteristics, which were found insufficient to
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support a fracture mechanism by themselves. In order to
collect more data (further to those presented in the litera-
ture) related to fracture characteristics of the DI specimens,
we prepared a series of cylindrical castings and tried to
connect the casting modulus to the tensile properties under
different strain rates and their fracture characteristics.
We monitored the failure of these components. Their
fracture characteristics were identified by scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) imaging and made possible the step-by-
step scientific interpretation of the fatigue mechanism.
Chemical analysis, stereo photography, and optical metal-
lography added the necessary data to complete the study.
Experimental Procedure
From the small broken part of the knuckle and close to
the fracture surface, a 10-mm-thick slice was cut off in
order to conduct chemical analysis by OES and optical
metallography.
A series of cylindrical castings with ferritic (12 pieces)
and ferritic–pearlitic (12 pieces) microstructure were cast
according to [1] in different diameters (three pieces for
Fig. 1 (a) A drawing of the position of a steering knuckle in the
steering and suspension system; (b) a real and a drawing knuckle. The
arrows indicate the point where the fracture occurred
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J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328
each diameter U10, U25, U30, and U50 mm). Chemical
control of the melt was done by thermal analysis and the
final materials were characterized as DI according to EN
1563. From each of the above casting, tensile specimens
were prepared with d0 = 6 mm for U10 and d0 = 14 mm
for the other diameters according to the Swedish standard
SS 11 21 27 [2]. As a whole 24 tensile specimens were
prepared, 6 with d0 = 6 mm and 18 with d0 = 14 mm.
These specimens were subjected to monotonic tensile
testing under different crosshead velocities (0, 21 –1, 1 and
2, 1 mm/s) for each casting modulus. The testing was
carried out at ambient temperatures.
From the upper arm of the steering knuckle, which is
connected to the front strut damper, a specimen with
dimensions 10 9 10 9 55 mm was abstracted for a
Charpy V-notch impact test according to ASTM.
The fracture surface of the broken part of the steering
knuckle, the tensile specimens and the impact specimen
were observed under a stereoscope and further under the
SEM. The SEM images for analyzing the topography of
the fracture surface of the broken part of the knuckle, the
tensile specimens and the impact specimen were 54 from
whole the surface, 15 across the main diameter of each
cylinder, and 10 across the direction of the decoherence,
respectively.
Results
The metallographic observation, as presented in Fig. 2, and
the chemical analysis, Table 1, from the 10-mm slice,
which was cut off from the small broken part, shows that
the knuckle was constructed from DI. At the metallo-
graphic observation non-inclusion or defect was observed
at the matrix, which was ferritic–pearlitic.
Fig. 2 Optical metallography of the 10-mm-thick slice which was cut
off near the area of failure
J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328 325

Table 1 Chemical analysis (wt.%) of the steering knuckle

%C %Si %Mn %P %S %Cr %Mo %Ni %Al %Co %Cu %Nb

3.501 2.457 0.2047 0.024 0.015 0.031 0.015 0.010 0.014 \0.01 0.049 0.005
%Ti %V %W %Pb %Sn %Mg %Zr %Sb %Zn %N %Fe

0.020 0.0107 \0.01 0.005 0.005 0.031 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.004 93.6

Fig. 3 Stereoscopic view of the fracture surface of the specimen with

pearlitic microstructure, from the tensile specimen with d0 = 14 mm
tested under 2, 1 mm/s crosshead velocity

All fracture surfaces of the tensile specimens exhibited

similar, macroscopic and microscopic, fracture character-
istics. Figure 3 shows a stereoscopic image of the fracture
surface of the specimen with pearlitic microstructure, from
the tensile specimen with d0 = 14 mm tested under 2,
1 mm/s crosshead velocity. An internal dull fibrous cyclic Fig. 4 Two SEM images from the specimen shown in Fig. 3. The
surface and an external flat and smooth surface with small upper part is from the cyclic internal and the lower part is from the
sparkling areas are clearly identified. In Fig. 4 two SEM external surface
images from the specimen shown in Fig. 3 are presented,
the upper from the cyclic internal and the lower from the
external surface. As shown in Fig. 4, the fracture mode for
the internal cyclic surface is ductile with dimples whereas
brittle cleavage fracture covers the external area.
All 10 SEM images taken from the Charpy impact
specimen exhibited the same characteristics. The fracture
mode for this specimen, as shown in Fig. 5, is cleavage
decoherence.
Figure 6(a) shows a stereoscopic view of the surface of
the broken small part of the knuckle. The surface at the
widest part has fibrous texture and the radials, which run
across a part of the surface, are obvious. Figure 6(b) shows
a simple drawing with the positions of SEM images taken
in this part, and Fig. 6(c) forms a drawing with the dis-
tinctive six areas of the surface related to the macroscopic Fig. 5 SEM image from the fracture surface of the Charpy impact
fracture characteristics. specimen

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Fig. 6 (a) Stereoscopic view of the fracture surface of the broken
small part of the knuckle; (b) a drawing of the fracture surface of the
broken small part with the positions of SEM images; (c) a drawing
with the distinctive six areas of the surface related to the macroscopic
fracture characteristics of the broken small part
Area a exhibits 100% ultra-fine characteristics (probably
dimples), as shown in Fig. 7. Area b exhibits, at a per-
centage of 90%, ductile dimple fracture in both the ferritic
and the pearlitic areas, as shown in Fig. 8. The radials that
start from area a run across the widest part of area b and
stop in area c, which is practically flat. In Fig. 9 the brittle
cleavage fracture which exhibits area c, at a percentage of
90%, in both the ferritic and the pearlitic microstructures is
visible. Area e appears as a hill in the fracture surface
which divides the surface into two parts (the upper and the
lower parts). Area d is a vertical plane related to the whole
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J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328
Fig. 7 Two SEM images of the ultra-fine fracture characteristics of
area a
surface. Figure 10 presents a SEM image of the area f,
where the rupture of the nodules graphite is obvious.
Discussion
All the tensile specimens exhibited both ductile and brittle
fracture characteristics, as shown in Fig. 3 and 4. This
shows that under the given stress and temperature condi-
tions the specimens were in the ductile to brittle transition
area, which is expected for DI with ferritic–pearlitic
microstructure.
The fracture surface from the Charpy V-notch impact
test exhibits only brittle cleavage characteristics. If the
fracture happened from the impact with the parked vehicle,
which is the main allegation of the company for the
knuckle’s fracture, the fracture surface should conclude in
the majority brittle cleavage characteristics and radials at
the direction of the impact, mainly at the horizontal z–y
plane. The fracture surface of the broken knuckle includes
a small area with ultra-fine characteristics, an area with
ductile dimple characteristics, and a broad area where
cleavage decoherence prevails. Furthermore, the area that
contains macroscopic radials has mainly ductile dimple
characteristics.
J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328 327

Fig. 8 Two SEM images of the ductile dimple fracture in both the
ferritic and the pearlitic areas of area b
Fig. 9 Two SEM images of the brittle cleavage fracture of area c

The knuckle due to its position in the steering and sus-

pension system accepts various loads. Especially, the
connection of the knuckle to the tie rod assembly under-
goes repeated bending loads during the vehicle’s
movement, mainly at the vertical axis, z. This connection,
which is parallel to the road, is located after the T-junction
reinforcement of the casting. The plane of failure, which is
vertical to the road, seems to have started from the corner
of a area. The fracture in this area appears to be the result
of a microplastic tearing process that operates on a very
small submicron scale, similar to the tearing topography
surface (TTS) mode of fracture [3]. The crack propagated
to the area b with a lower energy fracture mechanism and
led to the propagation of the crack of area c with a high
energy mechanism. Under area e, which is a hill separating
the surface into two regions, the final decoherence occur-
Fig. 10 A SEM image of the rupture of the nodules graphite of area f
red, possibly due to the crash.

broken knuckle represent the three different stages of

Conclusions
The failure of the knuckle examined in the present study
could be attributed to bending fatigue. The characteristics
of the three distinctive areas a, b, c in the surface of the
fatigue. Area a, with the ultra-fine characteristics, presents
the first stage of fatigue, area b the second, and area c the
third and final stage. Moreover, the radials that run across
area b and coincide near area a amplify the propagation of
the crack. Area e divides the fracture surface into two parts.

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The upper one participated to the three-stages fatigue while
at the lower one the final fracture occurred.
Although ductile iron has better fatigue performance at
a given tensile strength from the other cast irons [4], cast
irons, in general, have inferior fatigue performance than
forged steels when used for the construction of steering
knuckles [5]. This makes ductile iron a second choice
alloy type for the construction of steering knuckles. Fur-
thermore, while T-junction reinforcements are tested under
various conditions for fatigue performance, the failure in
this case is located where the T-junction reinforcement
fades out.
Failures of this type could result in, apart from damage
to property, human injuries or even worse loss of lives. The
behavior in bending fatigue of such castings for the con-
struction of steering knuckles, which conclude T-joints,
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J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2009) 9:323–328
should be reconsidered after rigorous research of the per-
formance of proportional connections in bending fatigue.
References
1. The Sorelmetal Book of Ductile Iron, Rio–Tinto Iron and Titanium
Inc., Montreal, QC, Canada, First Printing 2004
2. Svensk Standard SS 11 21 27, MNC Metallnormcentralen
3. Victor, K.: Modes of Fracture, Fractography. ASM Handbook,
vol. 12, pp. 21, 22, 29. ASM International, Materials Park, OH
(1995)
4. Lampman, S.: Fatigue and Fracture Properties of Cast Irons,
Fatigue and Fracture. ASM Handbook, vol. 19, pp. 665–666. ASM
International, Materials Park, OH (1997)
5. Zoroufi, M., Fatemi A.: Fatigue Life Comparisons of Competing
Manufacturing Processes: A Study of Steering Knuckle, SAE
Transactions, SAE Technical Paper No. 2004-01-0628, 2004