European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol. 29 No.4 (2009), pp. 557-571 © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm Comparison Between Experimental Road Data and Finite Element Analysis Data for the Automotive Lower Suspension Arm Nawar A. Al-Asady Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering UKM,43600 UKM Bangi Selangor,Malaysia S. Abdullah Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering UKM,43600 UKM Bangi Selangor,Malaysia A. K. Ariffin Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering UKM,43600 UKM Bangi Selangor,Malaysia S.M. Beden Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering UKM,43600 UKM Bangi Selangor,Malaysia M.M. Rahman Department of Mechanical Engineering UMP,Locked Bag 12,25000 Kuantan Pahang,Malaysia Abstract In recent years, the reduction of development time has been a major challenge faced by auto manufacturers to stay competitive in their industry. Durability evaluation is one of the most time consuming elements in the development process. A modern computational approach based on finite element analysis (FEA) for integrated durability assessment in an automotive lower suspension arm component is presented. Linear FEA of the lower suspension arm is conducted to determine critical locations and strain distributions of the component. Fatigue local strain approaches, in conjunction with FEA stress distribution results, have been used for life prediction. Loading history from the Society of Automotive Engineering data (SAESUS) has been used for the analysis, in addition to data obtained from actual lower suspension arm. Strain distribution location in the component test agreed with FEA. The differences between road strain data and FEA predicted strains obtained for the component was found to be reasonable for the complex geometry considered; while