Fatigue Analysis for Automotive Wheel Bearings with Road Load Data

Automotive wheel bearings have primary functions of translating the rotating motion of the wheels into vehicle motion while bearing the vehicle weight. The life of automotive wheel bearings can be divided into raceway life and flange life. Of the two lives, flange life is the failure mode in which the wheel flanges begin to fail. The wheel flange life can be numerically predicted through fatigue analysis. Flange fatigue life requires analysis including rotation due to the bearing characteristics. Therefore, flange life evaluation of wheel bearings can be identified through actual road load test data by mounting wheel bearings on actual vehicles.

This paper discusses a fatigue analysis method for automotive wheel bearings using actual road load test data to calculate wheel flange life. Stress analysis and fatigue analysis were performed sequentially using commercial software. Stress was calculated by the stress analysis, and damage was calculated by the fatigue analysis from this result. In the stress analysis, the material properties and loadings were assumed to be linear. To investigate the nonlinear characteristics of the bearing, linear and nonlinear analysis was performed while changing the contact conditions. Stress analysis and fatigue analysis were performed on the baseline design and improved design, respectively. It was found that the damage of the improved design was significantly improved when compared to the damage of the baseline design. In conclusion, it is expected that the failure of the automotive wheel bearings can be predicted using the method proposed in this study.