Design and Analysis of Steering Knuckle at Diverse Strengthening Condition

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The steering knuckle is an essential component in All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) which withstands alternating loads subjected to different conditions without affecting the vehicle performance. The main objective of the proposed work was to design and analysis the steering knuckle under static conditions to observe stress, total deformation and factor of safety for proposed materials. In this present investigation, Aluminium alloy (AA7075) was chosen as it exhibits good ductility, high strength, toughness and high resistance to withstand impact load. The prime objective of this work was processed under three different conditions like virgin AA7075, AA7075 with T6 heat treatment and AA7075 with T6 heat treatment followed by shot-peening post processed technique was completed and to attain diverse strength of the samples were tested and noted appropriate responses. The secondary objective of our proposed work, an optimum knuckle design was modeled using Solidworks. The proposed materials test values were given as input data to perform static analysis using Ansys workbench by applying constraints and loads such as steering effort, braking torque, cornering force, bumping force and longitudinal load transfer on the developed ATV knuckle design based on calculation. The responses of stress concentration, total deformation and factor of safety were obtained through static analyzed conditions. On comparing AA7075 with T6 heat treated cum shot-peened material properties are higher values and the same as input data set for analyzing the developed design, in which it shows lower deformation value and less stress concentration zone with high factor of safety because of its diverse strengthening with high impact withstand ability of the knuckle. On the whole, this proposed work provides an optimal design approach and selection of suitable post processed material of ATV steering knuckle and to improve traction, vehicle performance due to better weight reduction and long life.</div></div>