Failure Analysis and Fatigue Life Improvement of Steering Mechanism of Heavy Commercial Vehicles Using FEA

Tie rods or Track rods are an integral part of vehicle's steering system. Just as its name suggests a Tie rod ties vehicle's steering rack to the steering arm. It is used to give direction to tires according to steering wheel movement. A tie rod assembly is attached to each end of the relay rod. The tie rod assembly consists of inner and outer tie rods that are usually connected through an adjusting sleeve. Tie rod may get fail due to varying forces and bumping of vehicle during steering. The forces from the steering are also considered during the static condition of car. The finite element models of the modified tie rod also analyzed to find stiffness and stress distributions in each component. Mr. Omkar G. Purkar | Prof. P. R. Pimpalkar "Failure Analysis and Fatigue Life Improvement of Steering Mechanism of Heavy Commercial Vehicles Using FEA" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-6 , October 2021, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd46441.pdf Paper URL : https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/mechanical-engineering/46441/failure-analysis-and-fatigue-life-improvement-of-steering-mechanism-of-heavy-commercial-vehicles-using-fea/mr-omkar-g-purkar

About IJTSRD

International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) provide a digital platform where author can promote their original research / review work, innovation / new ideas, Comparative / Comparison study in various fields. Our Aim is knowledge sharing between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working in and around the world.

Tie rod Steering International Journal modify Tie rod Analysis finite element Model

International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD) 
Volume 5 Issue 6, September-October 2021 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470 
 
@ IJTSRD   |   Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD46441   |   Volume – 5   |   Issue – 6   |   Sep-Oct 2021 
Page 522 
Failure Analysis and Fatigue Life Improvement of Steering 
Mechanism of Heavy Commercial Vehicles Using FEA 
Mr. Omkar G. Purkar
1
, Prof. P. R. Pimpalkar
2
 
1PG Student, 2Professor, 
1,2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shri Sai College of 
Engineering &Technology, Bhadrawati, Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India 
 
ABSTRACT 
Tie rods or Track rods are an integral part of vehicle’s steering 
system. Just as its name suggests a Tie rod ties vehicle’s steering rack 
to the steering arm. It is used to give direction to tires according to 
steering wheel movement. A tie rod assembly is attached to each end 
of the relay rod. The tie rod assembly consists of inner and outer tie 
rods that are usually connected through an adjusting sleeve. Tie rod 
may get fail due to varying forces and bumping of vehicle during 
steering. The forces from the steering are also considered during the 
static condition of car. The finite element models of the modified tie 
rod also analyzed to find stiffness and stress distributions in each 
component. 
 
 
KEYWORDS: Track Rods, Steering System, Tie Rod etc 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
How to cite this paper: Mr. Omkar G. 
Purkar | Prof. P. R. Pimpalkar "Failure 
Analysis and Fatigue Life Improvement 
of Steering Mechanism of Heavy 
Commercial Vehicles Using FEA" 
Published 
in 
International 
Journal of Trend in 
Scientific Research 
and Development 
(ijtsrd), 
ISSN: 
2456-6470, 
Volume-5 | Issue-6, 
October 2021, pp.522-525, URL: 
www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd46441.pdf 
 
Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and 
International Journal of Trend in 
Scientific Research and Development 
Journal. This is an 
Open Access article 
distributed under the 
terms of 
the Creative Commons 
Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) 
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) 
 
INTRODUCTION 
A tie rod is an important member in vehicle 
suspension system. It performs an important task of 
transferring the motion from steering system to 
suspension system. In a car’s steering wheel is 
connected to the steering gear steering wheel turn the 
wheels. The steering gear is connected to the wheels 
via the tie rod ends. The job of the tie rod end is to 
ensure the wheels are aligned. It provides the 
adjustment for wheel alignment that keeps the tires 
from wearing out on the inner and outer edges. If they 
wear out, the wheels will lose alignment and you may 
find that the tires and steering wheels are shaking 
when you drive the car. To evaluate the structural 
performance of tie rod, we need to consider the loads 
coming on tie rod. From various studies and practical 
observations, it is found that tie rod is primarily 
encounter under compressive loads and hence fails in 
buckling. Moreover due to suspension components 
fluctuating loads are also coming on tie rod due to 
random loads coming on suspension of vehicle.  
 
The efforts required where car is moving are 
comparatively less with stationary car. The working 
strength of the tie rod is that of the product of the 
allowable working stress and the minimum cross-
sectional area.  
Objectives 
The aim of the project is to accurately find out the 
buckling loads and the fatigue life of Tie rods, 
especially ones that are critical in compression used 
in automobile industries. To perform the fatigue 
analysis of the existing tie rod and to modify the 
design of the tie rod for infinite life. 
Literature review 
1. The paper “FEA OF TIE ROD OF STEERING 
SYSTEM OF CAR”, entitled by Manik A. Patil, 
Prof. D. S. Chavan, Prof. M. V. Kavade, Umesh 
S. Ghorpade is studied the FEA analysis of Tie 
rod is carried out to check its natural frequency, 
maximum stress analysis and deformation. The 
 
 
IJTSRD46441 
International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 
@ IJTSRD   |   Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD46441   |   Volume – 5   |   Issue – 6   |   Sep-Oct 2021 
Page 523 
most percentage weight of vehicle is taken by 
suspension system; however tie rod may get fail 
due to fluctuating forces during steering and 
bumping of vehicle .The forces from the steering 
is also considered during the static condition of 
car. Vibration and fatigue of Tie rod has been 
continuously a concern which may lead to 
structural failure if the resulting vibration and 
stresses are severe and excessive. It is a 
significant study which requires 
in-depth 
investigation 
to understand 
the structural 
characteristics and it dynamic behavior. This 
paper presents and focuses on some Finite 
Element (FE) analysis of a typical tie rod of a car 
will be carried out and natural frequency will be 
determined. 
2. The 
paper “RIGID BODY DYNAMIC 
SIMULATION OF STEERING MECHANISM” 
entitled by V. D. Thorat, S. P. Deshmukh studied 
Project work present rigid multi body dynamic 
analysis approach in design. The application of 
this methodology simplifies design process and 
give correct result. For the case study here work 
of design done on Ackerman steering mechanism 
for tipper. In this first according to Ackerman 
conditions basic geometry is design and then 
optimize it for static loading, modal analysis and 
then for dynamic forces generated on steering 
linkages while turning using Rigid Dynamics tool 
in Ansys.  
3. The paper “FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF 
TIE-ROD FOR SPACECRAFTS” entitled by 
Kiran S Sankanagoudar, Dr. H. K. Amarnath, 
Prashant D. Bagalkot, Mukund Thakur This paper 
describes the design and mechanism for the 
deployment of Equipment panel of a spacecraft. 
For this a tie rod is designed and analysis is done 
in UG NX 7.5, the design analysis section 
provides data on linear Buckling analysis. Both 
the ends of the Tie rod are hinged so that the 
Equipment panels assembled to Tie –rod can be 
tilted from Horizontal condition to vertical 
condition. And safety of factor taken is 3.0. 
Methodology 
 Data collection from site 
 CAD modeling of existing system 
 Finite Element Modeling.  
 Analysis of the tie rod in FEA  
 Optimization of design  
 Results discussion 
 Conclusion
CAD Model 
1. CAD Model of Modified Tie Rod 
 
Fig. 1: CAD Model of Modified Tie Rod 
2. Modified Tie Rod Finite Element Model and Boundary Conditions 
 
 
Fig. 2: Modified Tie rod Finite Element Model and Boundary conditions 
 
International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 
@ IJTSRD   |   Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD46441   |   Volume – 5   |   Issue – 6   |   Sep-Oct 2021 
Page 524 
3. Modified Tie rod Finite Element Analysis and Results 
 
 
 
 
Conclusion 
By performing transient analysis we obtained 
140Mpa stresses at both ends, under repeated loading 
structure will fail at this stress so there was a scope 
for modification. Connecting bushes at both end 
added to the tie rod to increase the stiffness of the rod 
against stresses. And finally to validate the modified 
design again modal, static and transient dynamic 
analyses were carried out. And result stress 100Mpa 
obtained which is within the allowable limit. 
 
 
References 
[1] Manik A. Patil1, Prof. D. S. Chavan, Prof. M. 
V. Kavade, Umesh S. Ghorpade ‘FEA of Tie 
Rod of Steering System of Car’in International 
Journal of Application or Innovation in 
Engineering & Management 
(IJAIEM), 
Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 
[2] V. D. Thorat, S. P. Deshmukh, ‘Rigid Body 
Dynamic Simulation Of Steering Mechanism’ 
in IJREAT International Journal of Research in 
Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume 
3, Issue 1, Feb-Mar, 2015 
International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470 
@ IJTSRD   |   Unique Paper ID – IJTSRD46441   |   Volume – 5   |   Issue – 6   |   Sep-Oct 2021 
Page 525 
[3] Kiran S Sankanagoudar, Dr. H. K. Amarnath, 
Prashant D. Bagalkot, Mukund Thakur 
‘FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF TIE-
ROD FOR SPACECRAFTS’ in International 
Journal 
of Advanced Technology 
in 
Engineering and Science Volume No. 02, Issue 
No. 06, June 2014 
[4] A. H. Falah *, M. A. Alfares, A. H. Elkholy, 
“Failure investigation of a tie rod end of an 
automobile steering system”, Mechanical 
Engineering Department, Kuwait University, P. 
O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait 2006.  
[5] Wei Duan a, Suraj Joshi, “Failure analysis of 
threaded connections in large-scale steel tie 
rods”, Department of Mechanical and Industrial 
Engineering, Concordia University, Sir George 
Williams Campus, 1515 St. Catherine Street 
West.