Exercise

In this tutorial, a control arm loaded by brake force and vertical force is used, as shown in Figure 1. Two load time histories acquired for 2545 seconds with 1 HZ, shown in Figure 2, are adopted. The SN curve of the material used in the control arm is shown in Figure 4. Because a crack always initiates from the surface, a skin meshed with shell elements is designed to cover the solid elements, which can improve the accuracy of calculation as well.
Figure 1. Model of the Control Arm for Fatigue Analysis

rd2070a_control_arm
Figure 2. Load Time History for Vertical Force

rd2070a_load_time
Figure 3. Load Time History for Braking Force

rd2070a_vertical_force
Figure 4. SN Curve

rd2070a_sn_curve

The model being used for this exercise is that of a control arm, as shown in Figure 1. Loads and boundary conditions and two static loadcases have already been defined on this model.