Finite Element Methods based Structural Analysis of Universal Joint using Structural Steel Material

The present work deals with the optimization of universal joint using structural steel in order to reduce the mass and the stress value using FEM. The universal joint model was prepared in CAD software SOLIDWORKS and the static structural analysis was done in CAE tool ANSYS to determine the equivalent stress (von-mises). First of all, the failure analysis was done which shows that existing universal joint of structural steel was safe below the Torque moment 3850 N-m. Then the structural analysis of the universal joint was done for torque value 3800 N-m. The sensitivity analysis was run to determine sensitive area of universal joint where stresses were high and the sensitive dimensions were changed to find the minimum stress value and mass. For the optimized design, the Equivalent stress (von-mises) reduction in case of structural steel is 15.724% for the torque value of 3800 N-m. The mass of the universal joint reduces by 0.451%. The mass reduction from the cross alone is 4.473%. Final result shows that the stress reduction percentage and total mass reduction percentage comes out to be 15.7 and 0.451 % respectively.