Prediction of Fatigue Failures of Aluminum Disc Wheels Using the Failure Probability Contour Based on Historical Test Data

Disc wheels intended for normal use on passenger cars have to pass three tests before going into production: the dynamic cornering fatigue test, the dynamic radial fatigue test, and the impact test. This paper describes a probability model for prediction of fatigue failures of aluminum disc wheels, which intends to better link the prediction using simulation results with historical test data. Finite element models of 54 aluminum wheels, which are already physically tested, are constructed to simulate the dynamic cornering fatigue test. Their mean stresses and stress amplitudes during the fatigue loading cycle are calculated and plotted on a two-dimensional plane. Matching with historical test data, the failure probability contour can be drawn. For a new wheel, the failure probability of dynamic cornering fatigue test can be read directly from this probability contour. The test result of the new wheel can be added into the set of historical test data and the failure probability contour is updated. Same procedure is directly applied to the fatigue prediction of dynamical radial fatigue test. At this point we only have 20 historical test data to construct the failure contour. The prediction will become more and more reliable as the number of historical test data increases.