Analysis and design of a ball joint, considering manufacturing process

Abstract

A ball joint is an automobile component that connects control arm to knuckle part. The ball joint can also be installed in linkage systems for motion control applications. This work describes a simulation strategy for a ball joint analysis, considering the manufacturing process. The manufacturing process can be divided into plugging and spinning processes. The dynamic analyses for the caulking process, made of plugging and spinning, are sequentially performed. Then the interested responses are selected as the stress distribution generated between the ball and bearing and the gap displacement. In this work, DAFUL software, using an implicit integration method, is introduced to calculate the responses. In addition, optimization problems that minimize the stress distribution and axial displacement are solved, by adopting the Kriging metamodel.