Investigating the Effect of Weight Reduction of Rod-End in Drag-Link Product with Finite Element Analysis, Fatigue Test, and a Case Study

The connection surfaces of drag-link must be tough and safe enough to carry transmitted forces that exert on the product in service conditions. Therefore, undulated forming takes place in machining process to stay the rod-ends in the rod. In the rod-end, after forming process, a straight part which remains on the body causes extra cost and weight on the product. In this study, the result of shortening of rod-end which was produced from C45+N quality steel was investigated by comparing with the unmodified rod-end. The comparison was carried out by fatigue test and Finite Element Analysis. The results showed that the cropped part has almost no effect on the durability of the product. It is measured that the modification result with 0,082 kg weight reduction on each rod-end and 5 seconds shortening of machining process were observed by the modification on rod-end. The effect of modification on the part was examined in a case study. The case study indicated that annual expenses of raw material lowered by $9.124,56 and total cost decreased by $11.480,20.