RELIABILITY BASED DESIGN

OPTIMIZATION OF AN
ARTICULATING ROD

Guided by
Dr. Arif Malik
 Articulating Rod
Connecting
Rod
Master Rod

Articulating
Rod

Connecting Rod in Master/Articulating Rod

Reciprocating engine in Radial engine
 Objective
To perform reliability based design
optimization on an articulating rod of a
radial engine for failure against yielding.
 TECHNICAL APPROACH
1. DEFINITION OF RANDOM VARIABLES
2. DESIGN OF THE ARTICULATING ROD
3. TWO POINT APPROXIMATION FOR NON
LINEAR LIMIT STATE FUNCTION
4. COMPUTATION OF RELIABILITY
5. OPTIMIZATION
 Random Variable Distribution
Name Notation Mean Distribution Equivalent
Type COV
Diameter of the piston end of the d 14 Log Normal 1%
rod
Length of rod L 178 Uniform 13*
Load P 31000 Normal 2%

P~N(31000,680) d ~ logN (2.683,9.9e-3) L~U (165,178)

* This represent half width of uniform destruction
 Limit State Function
Z=Strength-Yield Stress(VM)

Based on material Used TANA to come up

(370 MPa) with an approximation
Function Approximation to get stress equation
Two point adaptive nonlinear approximation (TANA)
 Design points X1 &X2
P1= 31960
P2= 36040

d1= 12.93 L1=165

d2=15.15 L2=191

Stress values at X1 & X2 were obtained by performing

simple static stress analysis at X1 and X2
- g(X1) = 340.542
- g(X2) = 384.018
 Gradient calculation (at X2)

X X G() dg/dx at X2
d 15.15 15.3015 383.955 -0.4158
L 191 192.91 384.024 3.14e-3
P 36040 36400.4 387.859 0.01066
 Reliability computation

Method R Pf
MCS 0.8452 0.1548
HLRF 0.8468 0.1532
 Variation of Reliability with statistics
Mean SD R (MCS) R (HLRF)
d L P d L P
14 165 34000 .14 191 680 .8452 .8468
14 165 34000 .14 191 340 .9790 .9796
14 172 34000 .14 184 680 .8455 .8461
14 165 34000 .07 191 680 .8453 .8468

- Change in SD of load significantly changes R.

- R computed using both the methods agree with each other
- Performance function is non-linear to a small order.
 Optimization
Constraint function
oInner diameter should be less than 0.8 times the
outer diameter
oThe structure should at least be 85% Reliable
Objective function
oWeight of the entire structure has to be minimized
How to get an
expression for
the weight?
Approximation for weight
Optimized Results
d (mm) L (mm) Reliability Weight
Starting point 14 178 0.8468 161.2 gm
Optimized point 15.15 165 0.8619 155.55 gm

Limitations and Scope for future work

Optimization is valid only within the domain of the design points
Only 3 random variables were considered for reliability analysis
CHALLENGES FACED
Deciding the random variables and their distribution
Developing a generalized model to accommodate
change in the random variables

LEARNING OUTCOME
Importance of using approximations
Combine reliability with structural mechanics