Design and Development of Connecting Rod with Aluminum Alloy Replacing Iron Based Alloy Material for Reciprocating Piston Engine

Abstract

The connecting rod is the intermediate member between the piston and the Crankshaft. Its primary function is to transmit the push and pull from the piston pin to the crank pin, thus converting the reciprocating motion of the piston into rotary motion of the crank. Existing connecting rod is manufactured by using Carbon steel. The axial stresses are produced due to cylinder gas pressure (compressive only) and the inertia force arising in account of reciprocating action (both tensile as well as compressive), where as bending stresses are caused due to the centrifugal effects. The result of which is, the maximum stresses are developed at the fillet section of the big and the small end. Hence, the project deals with the stress analysis of connecting rod by Finite Element Method ANSYS WORKBENCH 14.0 Software. The main objective in this paper to review on design evaluation and optimization of connecting rod parameters by using finite element method is to achieve suitable design for connecting rod. That can be achieved by changing such design parameters in the existing design. Finite element analysis of single cylinder four stroke petrol engines is taken for the study; Structural systems of Connecting rod can be easily analyzed using Finite Element techniques. So firstly a proper Finite Element Model is developed using Cad software Pro/E or Catia. Then static analysis is done to determine the von Misses stress, shear stress, elastic strain, total deformation in the present design connecting rod for the given loading conditions using Finite Element Analysis Software ANSYS v 14.In the first part of the study, the static loads acting on the connecting rod, After that the work is carried out for safe design. Based on the observations of the static FEA and the load analysis results, the load for the optimization study was selected. The results were also used to determine of various stress and the fatigue model to be used for analyzing the fatigue strength. Outputs of the fatigue analysis of include fatigue life, damage, factor of safety, stress biaxiality indication. Then results of present model in ANSYS are compared with the results of existing design in the reference paper.