Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

FEA Based Fatigue Life Assessment of an Automobile Lower

Suspension Arm Using Various Strain-Life Models
1

S. ABDULLAH, 1N.A. AL-ASADY, 1A. K. ARIFFIN, 2M.M. RAHMAN AND 1Z. M. NOPIAH
1
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Pahang, 25000 Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
shahrum@eng.ukm.my

Abstract: - The recent emphasis on more suitable and reliable life predictions for fatigue-critical parts in
ground vehicles so this paper deals with the problem of fatigue life assessment for automotive engineering
component, especially for a lower control arm due to consider it as a vital component in the automobile
suspension system. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been used to get the results for the first three models,
while Fortran coding program has been used for the last. Experimental strain data has been collected using
strain gauges to be used as input loading for the strain-life models. The results for three common strain-life
models (Coffin Manson, Morrow, Smith-Watson-Topper (SWT) and the Effective strain damage (ESD)
approach were discussed and compared. Finally, ESD can be considered as safer approach in design life for
automobile lower suspension arm under variable amplitude loading.
Key-Words: - Automobile lower suspension arm; life prediction; fatigue; finite element; strain life; Variable
amplitude.

because it has been used for research purposes not

for commercial use.
The present paper describes the fatigue life
comparison for the automobile lower suspension arm
under three surface road using four strain life
models. The results show that the country road gives
lower life (cause higher damage). For the fatigue
strain life models, the ESD model can be considers
as safer model in design life than the other three
models.

1 Introduction
Fatigue analysis procedures for the design of modern
structures rely on techniques, which have been
developed over the last 100 years or so. Initially
these techniques were relatively simple procedures,
which compared measured constant amplitude
stresses (from prototype tests) with material data
from test specimens. These techniques have become
progressively more sophisticated with the
introduction of strain based techniques to deal with
local plasticity effects. Nowadays, variable
amplitude stress responses can be dealt with. It is
very important to appreciate the issue of accuracy
when performing fatigue life calculations with finite
element (FE) models [1].
Most finite element analysis (FEA) based fatigue
packages have three main life assessment methods,
i.e. Stress-life, Strain-life and Crack-propagation.
For the Strain-life method, three strain-life models,
i.e. Coffin-Manson, Morrow and Smith-WatsonTopper (SWT), are available in most of the FE
packages. The Morrow and SWT models consider
the mean stress effect inside their calculation. In
addition, the ESD model is also introduced for
which it considers the cycle sequence effect in the
calculation. However, the ESD model is not
included as the post analysis of the FE packages,

ISSN: 1790-2769

2 Fatigue Strain-life Models

Many practical problems in engineering are either
extremely difficult or impossible to solve by
conventional analytical methods. Such methods
involve finding mathematical equation which define
the required variables. For example, the distribution
of stresses and strain in a solid component. One of
the main attractions of finite element methods is the
ease with which they can be applied to problems
involving geometrically complicated systems
[3]Fatigue life prediction represents one of the
applications for FE. Among the plastic strain
models, the Coffin-Manson, Morrow and SWT
models are widely used. In this paper, the ESD has
been used for comparing the results with the other
three models. Each of these models is an empirical

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Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

where E is the elastic modulus of the material,

is the net effective strain range for a closed
hysteresis loop which is related to fatigue crack
growth, A and B are material constants, and Nf is the
number of cycles to failure.

relationship
between
cycles-to-failure,
and
analytically,
numerically
or
experimentally
determined plastic strain range per cycle.
The first strain-life model is the Coffin-Manson
relationship [2],

a =

f
(2

+ f (2 N f

(1)

3 Finite Element Modelling

where E is the material modulus of elasticity, a is a

3.1

true strain amplitude, 2 N f is the number of reversals

to failure, f is a fatigue strength coefficient, b is a
fatigue strength exponent, f is a fatigue ductility
coefficient and c is a fatigue ductility exponent.
Based on the proposal by Morrow (1965) [4], the
relation of the total strain amplitude ( a ) and the
fatigue life in reversals to failure (2Nf ) can be
expressed as
a =

f
1 m (2N f ) b + f (2N f ) c
E
f

Geometrical Model

A lower suspension arm is a vital component in the

automobile suspension system. A geometric model
of a lower suspension arm for a 2000 cc Sedan car
was used for this study, which is subjected to a strain
variable amplitude fatigue loading. Threedimensional lower suspension arm model geometry
is drawn using the CATIA software, as shown in
Fig. 1. The FE-based durability analysis helps to
eliminate unnecessary tests by allowing the engineer
to check out the fatigue performance analytically
and to perform the optimization which can shorten
the time to the final results. The FE approach was
used for modelling and simulating of the lower
suspension component.

(2)

where m is the mean stress. Another strain-life

mean stress correction model was suggested by
Smith et al. [5], or often called the SWT parameter.
This relationship was based on strain-life test data
which was obtained at various mean stresses. Thus,
the SWT expression is mathematically defined as
2
2b
b+c
max a E = (f ) (2Nf ) + f f E(2Nf )

(3)
Fig. 1 Geometrical model of automotive lower
suspension arm.

where max is the maximum tensile stress for the

particular cycle. This equation is based on the
assumption that for different combinations of strain
amplitude, a , and mean stress, max , the product

3.2 FE Model and Boundary Conditions

The local strain, or crack initiation approach to
fatigue life estimation requires accurate values of
local elastic-plastic stresses and strains, especially at
free surfaces. In principal, these can be obtained
through non-linear FE analysis, but this approach is
usually impractical for lengthy and complex load
histories. For this reason elastic-plastic stresses and
strains are commonly estimated using a combination
of linear elastic FE analysis and a notch correction
procedure (elastic-plastic correction) [10].
The auto tetrahedral meshing approach is a
highly automated technique for meshing solid
regions of the geometry. It crates a mesh of
tetrahedral elements for any closed solid including
boundary representation solid. Tetrahedral meshing
produces high quality meshing for boundary
representation solids model imported from the most
CAD systems. The TET10 mesh can give more

max a remains constant for a given life.

A fatigue damage model for use with VA strain

loadings was developed by DuQuesnay et al. [6],
knowing as the Effective Strain Damage (ESD).
This model is based on the crack growth and crack
crack closure mechanisms. It has been shown to
work well for a wide range of materials, load
spectra, component geometries, strain magnitudes
and mean-strain effects [6-9]. Using this model, the
fatigue damage can be analysed based on the
assumption of a short crack growth, since the crack
length at failure is usually less than a few
millimeters. The ESD strain-life model is
mathematically defined as
B
= ( f )
(4)

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Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

accurate solution since the 10 nodes tetrahedral

(TET10) element is used for the analysis with the
adoption of a quadratic order interpolation function.
There are three main parts in the lower suspension
arm which their behaviour has been considered in
the FE boundary conditions, ball joint, pivot 1 and
pivot 2. The FE model of the lower suspension arm
(Fig. 2) has boundary conditions as followed:

The load history was obtained from the actual

automotive lower suspension arm, which was
driven over country road. The sampling
frequency, fs for this case is 500 Hz. This fs
value was chosen in order to have accurate data
[12-13]. The data was measured using a fatigue
data acquisition system called SoMat eDAQ
(Fig. 3) when the car was driven at 25 km/h and
the data was then recorded as strain time
histories.

Fig. 2 FE model of automotive lower suspension

arm.
Distributed load has been applied on the inner
surface of pivot 1. Pivot 2 considers as a rigid
section with a rotation around x-axis from the side of
the vehicle body. In the same time, rigid has been
considered on the ball joint with translations in x and
y direction while rotation around x, y, and z-axis to
represent the braking and cornering loads. There are
no acceleration loads as inputs, due to collecting data
during driving of the car at constant velocity.

Fig 3 The setup of fatigue data acquisition SoMat

eDAQ to be used for data collection.
Fig 4 shows the position of the fixing strain gauge
location of the arm, which represents a critical area
on the lower suspension arm. FEA has been used to
get the exact position for the critical area. The strain
load history which shown in Fig 5 has been collected
during the driving of the car for three kinds of road,
i.e. Highway, pave and country road because
represent different kinds of surfaces can give variety
in results, especially these surfaces represents
common road surfaces.

3.3 Material Information

The purpose of analysing the chemical composition
of the steel sample is to enable its classification to be
made. Based on the analysing data on Table 1, the
steel can be classified as a medium carbon steel
since SAE coded steel which carbon content ranges
between 0.32-0.38%, manganese content ranges
between 0.60-0.9% were identified to be medium
carbon steel [11]. The SAE1045 steel represents the
fabricated material for the 2000 cc Sedan lower
suspension arm. The measured values have been
getting using INCA Energy system. Three samples
were cut from the lower suspension arm using a
cutter. The samples were subsequently ground with
successive SiC papers (grit 200-1200) and then
polished with polishing cloth and Alomina solution.
Table 1 Chemical composition of the steel
Element C Mg Si V Cr Ni Mn Fe

Fig. 4 Strain gauge location on the lower

suspension arm

Measured
0.33 0.13 0.29 0.04 0.14 0.49 0.9 Bal.
wt%

3.4

4 Results and Discussion

Loading Information

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In general, four strain-life models have been used,

including Coffin-Manson, Morrow, SWT, and ESD

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Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

of fatigue life between the CoffinManson, Morrow

and SWT strain-life models to the respective
experimental results is 358, 333 and 580%,
respectively. Using the ESD model, the smallest
difference was found to be of 17%.

for fatigue life prediction purposes for three kinds of

road surfaces. The fatigue life prediction using these
four models for the three kinds of road surfaces gave
different results as shown in Table 2 as fatigue
damage and in Table 3 as fatigue life. For the
country road surface less life (higher damage) has
been found while longer life (less damage) for
highway has been got, moreover, pave road surface
gave fatigue life between the other two roads. This is
due to bump and main holes existing in the country
road while smooth surface for highway road. The
first three models have been applied using local
strain values obtained directly from FEA at the
failure location. The local elastic-plastic strains were
obtained from FEA using a combination of elastic
FEA and a Neuber-type stress correction. The strainlife methods were then implemented to predict
fatigue life.

Fig. 6 shows the contour plot of fatigue life

for every element in the FE model. It also shows
the ball-joint area near the tyre side as critical
area of maximum damage.

Table 2 Fatigue damage using different strain-life

models
Road
CM
Morrow SWT
ESD
surface
Highway 1.5E-6 1.8E-6 2.7E-6 1.4E-5
Pave
5.2E-6 6.1E-6 9.0E-6 1.6E-5
Country
7.3E-5 8.0E-5 1.0E-4 1.9E-4
Table 3 Fatigue life using different strain-life models
Road
CM
Morrow SWT
ESD
surfaces [hrs]
[hrs]
[hrs]
[hrs]
Highway 49598 41976 28941 4013
Pave
2854
2455
1660
906
Country 1430
1311
1032
552
The ESD model gave less life than the other
models; this is due to its consideration the mean
stress and cyclic sequence effects in fatigue life
calculation [6-9, 14]. Longer life was for CM due to
consider mean stress as zero and no cyclic sequence
effects. For the results of the other two models
(Morrow and SWT) are between the results of CM
and ESD, this due to consider only the mean stress
for fatigue life prediction because it suggested for
constant amplitude only.
A study by Lynn and DuQuesnay [15] has
developed computer software for the prediction of
fatigue crack initiation based on ESD model. The
results provide further credit to the applicability of
both the software and the model as general tools for
the prediction of fatigue crack initiation.
Another study by Abdullah [16] showed a better
accuracy of the ESD model to predict the fatigue
lives of VA loadings compared to CoffinManson,
Morrow and SWT models. The average difference

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Fig. 5 Strain time history plot of the strain

gauge for different road surfaces: (a) highway,
(b) pave, (c) country road.

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Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

[4]

J. Morrow, Fatigue Design Handbook,

Advances in Engineering, Society of
Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, Pa., Vol.4,
1968, pp. 3-36.
[5] K.N., Smith, P. Watson and T. H.Topper, A
stress-strain function for the fatigue of metals,
Journal of Materials, Vol.4, No.5, 1970, pp.
767-778.
[6] D.L. DuQuesnay, M.A. Pompetzki, and T.H.
Topper, Fatigue life predictions for variable
amplitude strain histories, SAE transactions,
Vol.5, No.102, 1993, pp. 455-465.
[7] D. L. DuQuesnay, T.H. Topper, M. A.
Pompetzki and R. Jurcevic, The effective
stress range as a fatigue damage parameter in
the rainflow method, edited by Y. Murukami,
Butterworth Heinemann, London, 1992,
pp.132-141.
[8] D.L. DuQuesnay, T.H. Topper, M. T. Yu and
M.A. Pompetzki, The effective strain range as
a mean stress parameter, International Journal
of Fatigue, Vol.1, No.14, 1992, pp. 45-50.
[9] D. L. DuQuesnay, Applications of overload
data to fatigue analysis and testing,
Application of Automation Technology in
Fatigue and Fracture Testing and Analysis:
Fourth Volume, ASTM STP 1411, edited by
Braun, A.A., McKeighan, P.C., Nicolson, A.
M. & Lohr, R. D., ASTM, West
Conshohocken USA, 2002, pp. 165-180.
[10] P. Heyes, J. Dakin and C. StJohn, The
assessment and use of linear static FE stress
analyses for durability calculation, SAE
technical paper, 951101, 1995.
[11] R.A. Lindberg, Processes and Materials of

Fig. 6 The contour plot of lower suspension arm

fatigue life

4 Conclusions
The FE modeling and analysis of the automotive
lower suspension arm has been presented. The life
prediction methods used in the ground vehicle
industry mainly rely on crack nucleation approaches
(i.e. stress-life and strain-life). Coffin-Manson
model which consider zero mean stress, in addition
to the two popular strain-life models (Morrow and
SWT) which have been used to account for the mean
stress effect, in addition to the ESD strain-life model
which based on crack growth and crack closure
mechanisms and it has been used to account for the
cycles sequence effects. Different consideration of
the used models to calculate fatigue life prediction,
gave different results. As conclusion from the
results, ESD model is safer in component life
design.

nd

[12]

[13]

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Engineering
Methods
for
Deformation, Fracture and Fatigue, 2nd ed.,
Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1999.
[3] T.F. Roger, Finite Element Methods for
Engineers, Imperical College Press, 1997.

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Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED and THEORETICAL MECHANICS (MECHANICS '08)

amplitude fatigue loading, International

Journal of Fatigue, Vol.28, 2006, pp. 675-691.

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