Structural and Fatigue Numerical Analysis for Connecting Rods Development

The connecting rod is a structural component cyclic loaded during the Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) operation, it means that fatigue phenomena should be taken into account during the development, in order to guarantee the connecting rod required lifetime.

Numerical tools have been extremely used during the connecting rod development phase, therefore, the complete understand of the mechanisms involved as well as the reliability of the numerical methodology are extremely important to take technological advantages, such as, to reduce project lead time and prototypes cost reduction.

The present work shows the complete connecting rod Finite Element Analysis (FEA) methodology developed by ThyssenKrupp Metalurgica Campo Limpo Ltda (KMCL). It was also performed a fatigue study based on Stress Life (SxN) theory, considering the Modified Goodman diagram. The numerical results obtained by FEA are compared against the experimental data obtained by fatigue bench tests.