Design and Analysis of Piston Rod Joint in Hydraulic Cylinder for Industrial Implements

As heavy engineering industries grows so is the implements and necessity for more powerful mechanisms to actuate theses implements. Hydraulic cylinders are one such actuators that generates linear translatory motion. Hydraulic cylinder force required for actuation depends on implement requirements and in heavier applications were output forces needed are higher, the internal components of the cylinder needs to withstand this higher loads and hence the design of hydraulic cylinder internal components gains importance. The cylinder rod and piston inside the cylinder are connected jointly either by bolt or nut. This paper concentrates more on these joints which experiences higher tensile or compressive loads during operations. There are instances during implement operation, when the cylinder reciprocates and reaches its extreme fully open position. When there is no more stroke available, the cylinder bottoms-up completely putting high tensile load on the rod and piston-rod joint which may even lead to failure of these joint and cylinder. In this analysis, a static structural analysis was performed on three synthesized cylinder rod-piston joints to investigate different loads that come on these joints and which is best suitable joint for industrial implements with high tensile and preload loads.