FEA ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS OF CONNECTING ROD BIG END SANJAY B CHIKALTHANKAR 1 Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Govt. College of Engineering, Aurangabad, (M.S) India sbchikalthankar@gmail.com V M NANDEDKAR 2 Professor, Department of Production Engineering SGGSIE&T, Nanded, (M.S.) Ind vilas.nandedkar@gmail.com SURENDRA PRASAD BARATAM 3 M.E student, Department of Mechanical Engineering Govt. College of Engineering, Aurangabad spbaratam@yahoo.in Abstract- The automobile engine connecting rod is a high volume production, critical component. It connects reciprocating piston to rotating crankshaft, transmitting the thrust of the piston to the crankshaft. In order to carry out successfully the function, it is needed to grasp the rotating crankshaft and also to keep the good stiffness of the big-end of the connecting rod in acceptable ranges during engine operation. When the stiffness of the Connecting rod is needed to be reinforced, in general, some geometric dimensions are simply increased without consideration of their complex effects on deformation. Sometimes the reinforced geometry causes negative effects on the stiffness. This paper mainly focuses on the effect of geometric parameters on stiffness in the big-end structure of connection rod. It is found that the side flange is the most influencing parameters. The FEA simulated results are compared with experiments. Keywords- Stiffness, Finite element analysis, Big End of Connecting rod 1. Introduction It has been forced for engine power and performance to be dramatically increased in recent years and it brings a higher ignition pressure and rated rpm. As the power and rated rpm increase, the inertia force to the connecting rod at rated rpm also increases. Since the main role of the connecting rod in the engine is to deliver the firing load to crankshaft and to rotate the crankshaft smoothly, the much severe forces to the connecting rod require a more reliable design in the fields of not only the fatigue strength but also the stiffness of the big-end structure. Sanjay B Chikalthankar et al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST) ISSN : 0975-5462 Vol. 4 No.04 April 2012 1560