Developing an advanced spline fatigue prediction method

Sammanfattning: Fatigue failure is one of the most critical issues in industry nowadays as 60 to 90 percent of failures in metals are due to fatigue. Therefore, different methods and approaches are developed to estimate the fatigue life of metallic parts. In this research, a case-hardened steel splined shaft is studied to estimate the fatigue life that the shaft will withstand before failure. The purpose of the research is to develop an advanced fatigue prediction method for splines.A static experimental test was performed on the splined shaft for analyzing the load-strain behavior of the shaft and determining the suitable load cases of the study. A dynamic test of pure torsional load was carried out to collect experimental results for validating the generated fatigue methods and investigating the failure behavior of the shaft. Stress analysis was performed on the part for investigating critical areas and the effect of the different spline teeth designs on the resulting stress. Two finite element models were analyzed using two software, MSC Marc software with a geometry of straight spline teeth and Spline LDP with an involute spline teeth model. DIN 5466-1 spline standard’s analytical solution was used for verification purposes. Stress and strain-based approaches were used to estimate fatigue life. The most suitable method was evaluated against experimental test results.The research findings show that the most critical stress areas on the shaft are the spline root fillet and relief. When the part fails due to fatigue the crack initiates at the root fillet and propagates to the relief. It is also shown that involute teeth spline gives higher stress than straight teeth for the same load due to less contact area.The conclusion of the research could be summarized in: the stress-based method (Wöhler curve) is giving good accuracy and proved a reliable method. While among six different approaches used of strain-based methods, four-point correlation method is giving the best correlation to test results. Hence, it is recommended to use four-point correlation method for fatigue analysis for its accuracy and for considering both elastic and plastic behavior of the material.