Fatigue Analysis of a Formula SAE Hub - Lesson 2

Formula SAE suspension hubs allow the wheels to spin and turn freely. The hubs connect the wheels to the car through the suspension upright and control arms and transmit nearly all the experienced load of the racecar to the ground. Suspension hubs experience various cyclic loads that often lead to fatigue failure over time. Students can optimize and validate their wheel hub designs by performing a structural fatigue analysis to see if their design will be susceptible to fatigue failure.

The video demonstration goes over how to perform a fatigue analysis of a Formula SAE suspension hub. The lesson starts with an overview of an example problem to be analyzed. Next, a quick walkthrough of the model setup is performed before taking a deeper dive into the details of the fatigue tool, the different result options available, and how to interpret the fatigue results. This video shows a few of the various fatigue results such as life, damage, biaxiality indication, and equivalent alternating stress using Ansys Mechanical.

Download the simulation files here to follow this lesson.