Home made suspension arms, advice needed....

[Timmy511]

im currently drawing my uni project using solidworks, im about to draw the links to hold the front axle to the vehicle, what id like to know is, is there a specific formula for making plugs to be welded into the ends of a tube? im mainly concerned about how long they should be, what profile the end of the plug should have so as not to produce a stress concentration etc...

after a fair amount of research ive found that i can get seamless tubing with a 44.5mm o/d and 5mm wall thickness, that is what i was planning on using. and possibly using smaller stuff after ive down some tests on the final stucture.

cheers for any help, Tim.

[carl hurst]

This link gives a good idea of what they need to be like,

http://www.trail-gear.com/links.html

Carl.

[clbarclay]

There are nominal minimum ratio for the length of thread overlap of bolted joints to prevent thread stripping (ie bolt shears instead). These ratios were the guide lines I used while designing joints on placement.

The ratio is length of thread overlap relative to the bolts diameter

For high tensile bolt into high tensile materials (nuts) the ratio is 1:1 so for an M10 the overlap should be a minimum of 10mm.

For a HT bolt into steel (typical fabrication steel in the region of 275 to 355 MPa yeild strength) the ratio is 1.5:1 (for M10, 15mm minimum overlap)

Into aluminium (not sure what grades) the minium ratio is 2:1

If your designing in solidworks at uni the chances are the should be some form of FEA software availible to you, which will highlight which desings are better or worse for stress concentrations.