ABSTRACT
Wheel hubs are bearing unit mounted on axles. This study is related to wheel hub used for cars and light weight trucks. Now hubs have become more popular as they are save tractive efforts by reducing weight and friction. Generally wheel hub used for cars and light weight trucks are double row ball bearings and a pair of static and dynamic seal lips in between outer and inner races. Dynamic characterization of wheel hubs is concerned with fatigue life of inner race of wheel hubs under dynamic and impact loading. Structural analysis is done under static conditions considering dynamic coefficient to find out maximum and minimum principal stresses which are to be used to predict fatigue life using Goodman’s stress theory for fatigue. Also, seal is a very important parameter in bearings, avoid fluid flow from either side and in general two lip seals are used. This project does a simulation to predict seal performance during the design stage. Seal is tested for leakage test using mud and slurry solution impinged on sealing area and technique used is Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) using Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian Approach. Design modification is done by providing clearance to deform inner race. Although the stress concentration is high in the same area of bearing before modification, stress amplitude decreased drastically with increased fatigue life.
