11. International European Congress on Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, Rome, Italy, 11 - 13 November 2024, pp.94-105
The function of the control arms in the vehicle is to ensure that the vehicle's wheels touch the ground equally and to increase road holding. These arms are exposed to different loads depending on different road conditions. In this study, a fatigue analysis of the control arm was performed. By performing a fatigue analysis on the control arm to which different materials were assigned, it was aimed to examine the effect of materials on fatigue. The applied load was kept constant and the material and shape change were taken as criteria in the design. The control arm design was designed using the CATIA V5 R20 program and its analysis was performed using the ANSYS WORKBENCH 18.0 program. The materials used in the control arm design are aluminum alloy, Al6061 T6, and structural steel. In the study, the control arm, which was designed as 0.261 kg, was reduced to 0.191 kg with aluminum alloy and 0.11 kg with Al6061 T6. Optimum results were obtained with both weight reduction and design changes in the structural steel material. The analysis results show that the least deformation in comparison of deformation values is found in structural steel, which underwent a design change of 0.171 mm. Aluminum alloy has been deformed 2.09 times more than structural steel. When comparing the life values, it can be said that structural steel has a life value 1.21 times more than aluminum alloy and 8.56 times more than Al6061 T6. When the results of the analysis are examined, it is concluded that structural steel material is the most usable material for control arm design compared to other materials.