Failure Analysis and Re-Design of Tractor Brake Actuating Link

This article solves the customer complaint of poor performance of brake in certain tractors. This failure was reported particularly in Tractor which is predominantly used for puddling application. After prolonged usage, breakage was occurring in certain area of the actuating link. In order to overcome this problem, analysis has been carried out by using finite element method along with optimization technique. To obtain the best result various link designs have been created in CATIA and optimized with an optimization tool called OptiStruct solver in Hypermesh. The stress and deflection plots of existing and modified link were compared. Then the fatigue life of the optimized model is obtained from Nastran in order to know the life of the actuating link. In the same way fatigue life of the existing and modified link were analyzed and discussed.