Numerical and experimental analysis of torsional stress of traditional and modified steering yoke

Abstract

Growing competition and inventions in the automobile sector calls for either the modification of available products or the replacement of the old ones by fresh and advanced types of material products. To conserve natural resources along with economizing energy, reducing weight has been the focal point of automobile makers in the current scenario. Due to the added luxury and safety features, the weight keeps on increasing, which in turn reduces fuel efficiency and the total performance of the automobile. Therefore, reducing the weight of the automobile is the prime need of the current automotive industry. Steering yoke is a critical component of a vehicle, which links the suspension and the steering system. The failure study of steering yoke assembly shows that about 71% of failure occurs in yoke part. This paper focuses on optimization of steering yoke by targeting uniformity of stress over the entire structure as an objective function, without compromising with required strength and stiffness of the structure. CAD model of steering yoke was prepared in CATIA. Hyper Mesh was used to prepare a finite element model with ABAQUS solver. Topology optimization with OptiStruct solver, one of the modules of Hyper Works, was utilized for optimization of material. Modifications were done to the geometrical model and was iterated till achieving satisfactory results. It was observed that the stresses were uniformly distributed over the entire structure and maximum stress in the yoke was reduced by 22.8%. The mass of the modified yoke was also reduced by 22.5%. The FEA results of modified yoke were verified by comparing it with torsion experiment to validate the model.