Adaptive design of a universal automotive ball joint separating device

Abstract

Ball joint provides universal pivoting movement between the wheel hubs and control arms. The use of conventional ball joint separators was marred by cracks, damage to the castle nut on the joint stud and inferior mechanical advantage. An adaptive design was therefore necessary in response to these performance deficits and reiterated failures. The objective of this study was to offer the design and production of a universal ball joint separating device. GRANTA Selector was utilised in new material search. Design process was realized through ANSYS finite element analysis and structural stress analysis was performed using a load range of 200–1400 N. Optimal conditions of effort arm (mm) = 67.50, load arm (mm) = 66.38 and pitch (mm) = 2.50 were obtained at Mechanical Advantage (MA) of 0.85 giving an overall device efficiency of 83.51%. The maximum stress and maximum deformation respectively occurred close to the pivot at the base of the bottom half and at the tip of the top part of the ball joint separator. So, it was concluded that the effects of the control variables and their optimization were regarded as very useful to ascertain the optimum mechanical advantage of the device. The stress however is less than the yield strength of high carbon steel selected for device production and the separator performed the required tasks without failure.