Computers & Srucwes Vol. 51, No. 5, pp.

53S540, 1994
Copyright 0 1994 Elsetier Science Ltd
Pergamon 0045-7949(93)EOO42-M Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0045-x349/94 s7.00 + 0.00

STRESS DISTRIBUTION IN INTERFERENCE JOINTS

N. SIVA F%A~AD,~ P. SASHIKANTH~ and V. RAMAMURTIS

Departments of tMechanica1 Engineering and SApplied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology,
Madras-600 036, India

(Received 1 October 1992)

Abstract-The use of the finite element method in predicting the stress distribution in an interference joint
is illustrated and the results of a study of the influence of various parameters on these stresses is reported.

INTRODUCTION The vectors {u,,} and {us} are related as

Interference joints and shrink-fitted assemblies are
widely used in mechanical engineering. The most
common examples are axle-bearing and flywheel-
crankshaft assemblies. In the design of these assem-
blies, dimensions are normally arrived at by empirical
relations. Hence, the study of the stress distribution
in these assemblies becomes important for better
designs. It would be very useful to the designer if it
could be possible to estimate the deformations and
stresses in realistic assembly conditions. In shrink-
fitted joints, experimental methods have been limited
to photo-elastic analysis for the estimation of stresses.
This is applicable in only a limited range of materials
such as Araldite. It may not be possible to exactly
correlate this analysis for materials such as steel,
which are often used in practice. The empirical
relations available in the literature have the limitation
of being applicable only to a few standard shapes
such as a cylinder-on-cylinder. The most well known
of these is Lam& solution applied to a shrink-fitted
jacket on a thick cylinder [l]. The finite element
approach is a powerful tool in such situations which
has the advantage that it can be applied to any
arbitrary shape and to any material or combinations
of materials.
It is assumed that there is sufficient friction to
prevent slip at the contact nodes. Hence, the elements
of {1(0}corresponding to the normal displacements
equal the prescribed machined interference, and those
corresponding to displacement in the plane of the
contact surface equals zero. For the hub, listing
displacements on contact surface last, we have
(2)
where [K,,] is the stiffness matrix of the hub, {Fhi} and
{Fhc} are any external forces or body forces on the
hub, and {P} is a vector of nodal forces acting along
the contact plane by virtue of the interference.
A similar equation can be written for the shaft,
listing contact displacements first
(3)
Now, eqn (2) can be rewritten, using eqn (l), as

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION

For convenience, in the following description

the outer member is referred to as the hub and or
the inner member as the shaft. Daniel [2] has formu-
lated a method for modelling a shrink fit. In the
present paper a modified form of this method has ~~~l{~}={~~}+{~}-~~~l{~}. (4)
been used to carry out the parametric study on
interference joints. The formulations are briefly de- Equations (3) and (4) can be assembled into one
scribed below. system as
Let the displacements of the shaft be written as a
vector of displacements on the contact surface, {us),
and a vector of remaining displacements, {uSi}. Simi- =F+F,, (5)
larly, hub displacements consists of {uh} and {Q}.

535
536 N. SIvA PRAsnD et al.

Table I
d
(mm) Did Lid
IO0 2.0 0.5,0‘75, 1.0
1.5 0.5,0.75, I .o
150 2.0 0.5,0.75, 1.0
1.333 0.5,0.75, 1.0

ANALYSIS

The stiffness matrix was formed using the method

Fig. 1. Nomenclature of hubshaft system.
where [ZC]is the stiffness matrix assembled from [iu,]
and [KS], I; is a vector of external or body forces
assembled from Fhi, Fhhc,Fsi and F,, and F, is the
vector of contact forces which represents the interfer-
ence fit.
Equation (5) can be solved by any of the known
solution techniques to obtain the vector of displace-
ments
Equation (1) can be used to obtain {ah}. Also contact
forces P and stresses can be obtained using element
stiffness matrices.
of isoparametric formulation for axisymmetric bod-
ies [3]. A computer program was written incorporat-
ing the formulation given in eqns (1x5) and tested
using previously known results. Then hubshaft
systems with different combinations D/d, L/d, and
interferences were considered (see Fig. 1 for nomen-
clature). The study was carried out for shaft diam-
eters of 100 and 150 mm. The shaft was assumed to
be hollow with an inner diameter of 20 mm. Analysis
was carried out for the cases listed in Table 1.
The interference values taken were 52, 86 and
139pm corresponding to H6p5, H&s5 and H6u5,
respectively. Both hub and shaft are considered to
be steel members with Young’s modulus of
2.1 x lo5 MPa.
The discretization for one of the cases is shown in
Fig. 2. It was similar for all other cases.
The system was assumed to be only under the
influence of interference forces since it was found that
they were very high compared to normal magnitudes
of external loads or body forces. However, various
types of external loads or body forces, in the form of
pressure forces or concentrated nodal loads, can be
incorporated either before or after assembly of the
hub and shaft global stiffness matrices. The
boundary condition that was specified was zero axial
displacement at the two ends of the shaft.

L-- Ll
I
1, 2 4 16

d = 1OOmm
Ail dimensions ore in -mm

Fig. 2. Discretization of hub and shaft.

 Stress distribution in interference joints 537

ential stresses with different interferences, L/d and

-Lld.l; Did=2
D/d, respectively. Figure 7 is a plot of radial, axial
.\4 and circumferential stresses along a radial line pass-
ing through the geometric centre of the hub-shaft
4
system.
As can be seen from Fig. 7, the radial stress attains
the maximum value in the region of the interference
c plane. The rate of decay of radial stress is fairly high.
Hence, the value of the inner diameter of the shaft is
of no consequence as long as the ratio of shaft outer
diameter to shaft inner diameter is more than 2.5 to
.
3. The shaft inner diameter in the cases studied was
20 mm. Another prominent feature of Fig. 7 is the
reversal of sign of axial and circumferential stresses
across the interference plane.
The results of the study on shafts with d = 100 and
150 mm are presented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively.
Table 4 shows the percentage change in displacement,
stress and torque capacity for a known variation in
each parameter.
It is observed from Table 4 that percentage change
in maximum radial displacement, when L/d is varied
at a given shaft, is comparatively small (8-12%).
The order of variation as seen from Tables 2 and
3 is about 0.001 mm. The change in stress is
almost insignificant, i.e. (about 1% for 50% increase
2 L 6 in L/d). But it should be noted that the value of
Node nos.(rrf Fig.21 the stress is still significantly lower than that
Fig. 3. Distribution of radial displacement along interfer- computed from Lame’s formula. Lame’s solution
ence plane. assumes that both hub and shaft are of same
length. This suggests that radial stress would increase
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION significantly as the hub length approaches the shaft
length. Since in normal practice the L/d ratio does
Figure 3 shows the variation of different par- not exceed 1.0, it would be an advantage to have
ameters; that is L/d, D/d and interference. Figures interference joints with lower ratio of hub to shaft
4-6 show the variation of radial, axial and circumfer- length.

- RADIAL STRESS 0;

-- -- AXIAL STRESS O-=

- CIRCUM-STRESS 0;

Fig. 4. Variation of stresses with interference (L/d = 1.O, D/d = 2.0, d = 100 mm).
538 N. SIVAhASAD et al.

I 0
P I
0.2
1
I
0.4
1
0.6
I
0.6 1.

zi
-lO-

Fig. 5. Variation of stresses with L/d (D/d = 2, interference = 139 pm, d = 100 mm).

When there is a decrease of about 25% in D/d,
radial stresses decrease by 14-16% while axial
stresses increase by 10-l 1% and circumferential
stresses increase by 18%. This suggests that it would
be favourable to decrease D/d to decrease radial
stresses, as long as the axial and circumferential
stresses do not exceed the tensile strength of the
material.
As expected, the stresses were found to be directly
proportional to the interference.

40
c 2.0

t
30-

20-

:
E lo- 2505
1.5 = =-
= - --- - - ----=:
0

"0 I I I I
:z 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.6 1.1

ci
-107

-20
- RADIAL STRESS cr
-- - AXIAL STRESS cz

-30 --e--- CIRCUM STRESS q

1
-401

Fig. 6. Variation of stresses with D/d (L/d = 1.0, interference = 139 pm, d = 100 mm).
 Stress distribution in interference joints 539

-30 -___ AXIAL STRESS rz

-+ CIRCUM.STRESS re
t

Fig. 7. Variation of stresses along central radial line (D/d = 1.5, L/d = 0.75, interference = 139 pm,
d = 1oOmm).

CONCLUSIONS stresses occurring when L/d is increased. It is essential

To minimize stresses in the interference plane, the
ratio of hub outer diameter to inner diameter should
not be too low. The hub length has a significant
influence on the stresses in the joint and therefore the
designer should take advantage of the decrease in
to arrive at an optimal L/D ratio to have minimum
stresses in the contact plane.
The finite element method has been applied here to
a cylinder-on-cylinder case taking advantage of the
axisymmetric nature of the system. But the method-
ology presented above can be extended to other

Table 2. Results of a parametric study with d = 100 mm Table 3. Results of a parametric study with d = 150 mm
Stress (MPa) Stress (MPa)
Interference Interference
SlabNo. L/d D/d brn) Radial Axial Circum. Slab No. L/d D/d @m) Radial Axial Circum.
52 -46.07 34.54 146.03 52 - 32.24 21.94 97.00
1 0.5 2.0 86 -76.19 57.13 241.50 1 0.5 2.0 86 - 53.32 36.28 160.42
139 - 123.14 92.33 390.34 139 -86.18 58.64 259.28
52 -40.89 37.33 168.52 52 - 28.19 24.06 112.30
2 0.5 1.5 86 -67.63 61.73 278.71 2 0.5 1.5 86 -46.62 39.79 185.73
139 - 109.31 99.76 450.48 139 -75.36 64.32 300.19
52 -49.63 35.59 140.13 52 - 34.00 23.71 94.45
3 0.75 2.0 86 -82.09 58.85 231.76 3 0.75 2.0 86 - 56.24 39.21 156.21
139 - 132.67 95.12 374.58 139 - 90.90 63.37 252.48
52 -46.22 35.91 161.36 52 -31.42 23.98 108.61
4 0.75 1.5 86 -76.44 59.38 266.87 4 0.75 1.5 86 -51.96 39.66 179.63
139 - 123.55 95.98 431.34 139 -83.99 64.10 290.33
52 -53.33 35.78 137.13 52 - 36.67 23.52 92.22
5 1.0 2.0 86 - 88.20 59.18 226.79 5 1.0 2.0 86 - 60.64 38.90 152.53
139 - 142.55 95.66 366.57 139 -98.02 62.87 246.53
52 -49.10 34.54 158.76 52 - 33.31 23.05 106.92
6 1.0 1.5 86 -81.20 57.12 262.56 6 1.0 1.5 86 - 55.09 38.12 176.84
139 -131.25 92.33 424.37 139 -89.04 61.62 285.82
540 N. SIVAPRAsADef al.

Table 4. Percentage changes in displacements, stresses and torque capacity with changing parameters: d, = 100 mm and
d2= 150mm
Average percentage change in
Torque
Varying Percentage Max. disp. S,, &; & capacity
Darameter change d, d, d, dz d, d2 d, dr d, d,
Interference 65.38 65.5 65.4 65.38 65.32 65.40 65.41 65.38 65.38 65.5 65.4
Lid 50.0 8.8 8.2 1.29 0.88 5.46 9.92 -2.31 - 1.10 -49.0 -49.0
Dld -25.0 -23.0 -23.6 - 13.92 -15.88 10.22 11.11 17.92 17.93 -27.0 -27.0

regular and irregular shapes with appropriate modifi- 2. W. J. T. Daniel, Flywheel design by the finite element
method. Mech. Engng Tram, Inst. Engrs, Australia
cations to the method of stiffness matrix formulation.
ME7, 75-79 (1982).
3. L. J. Segerlind, Applied Finite Element Analysis, 2nd
REFERENCES
Edn. John Wiley, New York (1984).
1. F. B. Seely and .I. 0. Smith, Advanced Mechanics of 4. Indian Standards Recommendations for limits
Materials, 2nd Edn, pp. 321-327. John Wiley, London and tolerances for engineering, IS 919: 1963
(1963). (1963).