Every vehicle that uses an internal combustion engine requires at least one connecting rod depending upon the number of cylinders in the engine. It undergoes high cyclic loads of the order of 10(8) to10(9)cycles, which range from high compressive loads due to combustion, to high tensile loads due to inertia. Therefore durability of the component is of critical importance. Due to these factors the connecting rod has been the topic of research for different aspects such as production, materials, performance simulation, etc. The main objective of research was to explore weight reduction opportunities for the production of forged steel, aluminium and titanium connecting rods. This has entailed performing a detailed load analysis. Therefore, this study has dealt with two subjects, first, static load stress analysis of the connecting rod for three materials, and second, optimization for weight of forged steel connecting rod. In this research, firstly a proper geometrical model was developed using CATIA. Then the model is imported to the HYPERMESHwhich is a finite element pre-processor that provides a highly interactive and visual environment to analyse product design performance and the Finite Element model was developed. The stresses were found in the existing connecting rod for the given loading conditions using Finite Element Analysis software ANSYS 11.0. The topology optimization technique is used to achieve the objectives of optimization which is to reduce the weight of the connecting rod. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
