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Prediction of stress distribution in press-fit process of interference fit with a

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Article  in  ARCHIVE Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part C Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science 1989-1996 (vols 203-210) · September 2018
DOI: 10.1177/0954406218799783

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Original Article

Proc IMechE Part C:

J Mechanical Engineering Science
Prediction of stress distribution in press-fit 2019, Vol. 233(8) 2834–2846
! IMechE 2018

process of interference fit with a new Article reuse guidelines:

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theoretical model DOI: 10.1177/0954406218799783

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Xingyuan Wang1 , Zhifeng Lou1,2, Xiaodong Wang1,2,

Xiupeng Hao2 and Yue Wang2

Abstract
Interference fit is widely used in many industrial fields for its high ability to transmit an axial force or torque between a
shaft and hub. But the performance of interference fits during their life in service is limited by stress concentrations and
surface wear. Nowadays, theoretical methods based on thick-walled cylinder theory become increasingly abundant.
However, the prediction results of stress distribution in press-fit process are not accurate for ignoring the stress
concentrations. Since the stress distribution is significant for analysis of surface wear and assembly quality, especially
for precision assembly of small parts, the purpose of this study is to build a new theoretical model to predict the stress
distribution. The stress distribution equation was deduced based on a simplified model that a nonuniform linear load acts
on a portion of semi-infinite plane. Finally, the stress distribution in the press-fit process was analyzed by the theoretical
model, as well as the stress distribution of different material pairs (Ni36CrTiAl–50Ni-50Fe, AISI 1045–AISI 1045) under
full contact condition. The comparison between theoretical and numerical results shows that the new theoretical model
has high accuracy in predicting stress distribution and maximum stress, and the relative error is less than 17%. Therefore,
the new theoretical model can give more reasonable results and provide a more reliable approach for design of inter-
ference fits. Furthermore, the model provides a method for the optimization of interference analysis under different
structures and working conditions, and gives a theoretical basis for real-time estimation of assembly quality.

Keywords
Interference fit, press-fit process, stress distribution, stress concentration, theoretical model

Date received: 25 March 2018; accepted: 16 August 2018

deformation. Kovan4 analyzed the influence of separ-

Introduction
Stress concentration is a major concern in mechanical
engineering because they may limit the good perform-
ance of mechanical components during their useful
life.1 For interference fits, surface wear also is an
important factor influencing performance in addition
to stress concentration. Since the interference fit is
widely used in many industrial fields for its high abil-
ity to transmit an axial force or torque between a shaft
and hub with the help of friction effects,2 the stress
distribution prediction during press-fit process is of
great significance. Nowadays, the thick-walled cylin-
der theory (TCT)3 and the finite element method
(FEM) are the main tools for the design of interfer-
ence fit.
At present, TCT is used to determine the interfer-
ence value and parts’ dimension for its high effective-
ness in the prediction of contact stress under different
working conditions, such as the influence of separ-
ation frequency on contact stress under elastic
ation frequency on stress distribution of hollow shaft-
hub connections by TCT, which was also validated by
FEM. The results show that TCT has high accuracy in
prediction of stress distribution under elastic deform-
ation. You et al.5 analyzed the stress distribution at
the shaft-hub interface using TCT and FEM, and
their results also prove that TCT has a high accuracy
in contact stress prediction. But their research all
leave out the stress concentration at the contact
boundary for TCT was built based on the hypothesis
1
Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and System of Liaoning
Province, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
2
Key Laboratory for Precision and Non-traditional Machining of
Ministry of Education, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
Corresponding author:
Xiaodong Wang, Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and
System of Liaoning Province, Dalian University of Technology, Linggong
Road 2#, Dalian 116024, China.
Email: xdwang@dlut.edu.cn
Wang et al.
that interference fitting couple has an infinite/equal
length and can be simplified as plane strain case.
However, in practice, most of the shaft-hub couples
have different lengths, so it is inevitable to produce
stress concentration at the contact boundary. To
make up the deficiency of TCT, Croccolo and
Vincenzi6 derived the stress concentration factors
(SCF) to analyze maximum stresses based on diverse
numerical simulations, and their results show that this
method can be used to evaluate the maximum stress
located at the end of the hub. The research of Pérez-
Cerdán et al.1 also analyzed the stress state existing at
the hub–shaft interface using SCF which was
obtained by diverse numerical simulations, and their
results indicate that SCF can quantitatively estimate
the stress distribution. However, their researches are
all concerning about finished interference fitting cou-
ples with a certain contact length, so this method
cannot be applied to stress analysis in assembly pro-
cess. Furthermore, a few researchers pay attention to
stress concentration in the press-fit process. Since the
stress concentration is an important factor of contact
surface wear which may reduce the connection qual-
ity, it is necessary to analyze the stress distribution in
the press-fit process.
FEM is an excellent tool for analysis of interfer-
ence fit. Compared with TCT, the FEM gives more
accurate results under different operating conditions
such as separation frequencies. Furthermore, FEM
can provide more intuitive and accurate information,
so the researchers can do more in-depth research. For
example, Bae et al.7 analyzed the dimensional deform-
ation of the addendum and dedendum after the warm
shrink fitting process using FEM, and Ozturk8 ana-
lyzed the stress distribution of two-disc shrink fit
assembly of different material pairs. Their results
show that the FEM is better than TCT in stress dis-
tribution prediction and also indicate that TCT still
has some shortcomings in stress analysis. In the pre-
diction of press-fit curve, the relationship between
press-mounting force and displacement, the FEM
also gives more accurate results than TCT, but it is
difficult to use, especially for complex structures.
Benuzzi and Donzella9 predicted the press-fit curve
of a railway axle and wheel, which has a complex
structure, using TCT and FEM. Their results show
that the FEM is better than TCT, but the FEM is
less efficient. To make up the deficiency of TCT,
Wang et al.10 analyzed the TCT’s deviation in press-
fit curve prediction, and their research shows that the
deviation is mainly caused by the resistant force gen-
erated by noncontact regions which are neglected by
TCT. Furthermore, they also built a theoretical model
which can accurately predict the press-fit curve. Their
research indicates that stress concentration at the con-
tact boundary can increase the press-mounting force.
However, their theoretical model cannot predict the
stress distribution which limits its application in
design procedure. Fortunately, there is a direct
2835
relationship between the press-mounting force and
the stress distribution. Therefore, in this paper, a
new theoretical model was built to predict the stress
distribution with the help of the research of Wang
et al.10 and TCT. Furthermore, based on the above
analysis, FEM can be used to evaluate the stress dis-
tribution obtained by the theoretical model built in
this paper.
Existing studies have shown that contact length,
interference, and roughness all affect the stress distri-
bution of interference fits. Teng et al.11 analyzed the
stress distribution of the mating surface by means of
numerical analysis. The results show that both the
contact length and the interference value will affect
the stress distribution. As one of the important factors
affecting the stress distribution, the roughness signifi-
cantly affects the friction coefficient and contact
behavior of the mating surface. From the microscopic
point of view, the contact behavior of the micro-
convex body is very complex and is difficult to be
considered in the analysis model. From the macro-
scopic point of view, the influence of micro-convex
body on contact behavior appears as the influence
on the interference value and the friction coefficient.
Most of the researches on the influence of roughness
on the interference fits were performed from the
macroscopic point of view. As the research of Yang
et al.,2 roughness can cause the loss of interference to
affect the stress distribution, and it is considered that
the interference is a function of roughness. According
to Yang et al.’s study, the change of the roughness will
be equivalent to the change of the actual interference
value. Therefore, the interference value was analyzed
in this paper, and the influence of the roughness was
not. The theoretical model and numerical model
established in this paper were performed under ideal
assumptions, namely perfect contact of mating sur-
faces. Therefore, the theoretical model may encounter
two situations in practical applications. First, in the
design stage, it can be used to determine the geometric
dimension and the reasonable range of interference
value. Therefore, the strict precise matching of inter-
ference fits can be performed with the help of the rela-
tionship between actual interference and roughness.
Second, for the stress analysis of the maintained/reas-
sembled components, the actual interference value
must be determined based on the actual interfer-
ence–roughness relationship, and then bring into the
theoretical model for analysis.
Based on the above analysis, the theoretical model
for analyzing interference fits still needs improvement,
which is significant for improving design reliability
and efficiency. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to
build a theoretical model to predict the stress distri-
bution in press-fit process. So this paper first analyzed
the contact behavior of the mating surface under the
assumption of perfect contact, and then established a
new theoretical model for stress distribution predic-
tion. In order to obtain the parameters in theoretical
2836 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 233(8)

and numerical models, an automatic press-fit instru- region of the shaft can be equivalent to the noncon-
ment was built to implement assembly experiments of tact region of the hub (black line), and the problem is
the armature. Numerical analysis was carried out converted into that a nonuniform load acting on the
after the armature was reasonably simplified into a boundary of a homogeneous material. Furthermore,
structure with flanged hub and hollow shaft, and the since the interference value is much smaller than the
numerical results were verified by experiments. By parts dimension, the plane strain problem can be con-
comparing with the numerical results, the theoretical sidered as nonuniform load acting on a portion of the
prediction results were optimized, and the influence of straight boundary of a semi-infinitely plate.
contact length and interference on the stress distribu- The deflection of the straight boundary of the plate
tion was analyzed. In addition, the stress distributions can be found for any load distribution by using equa-
of different material pairs (Ni36CrTiAl–50Ni-50Fe, tion (1) which considering a concentrated force acting
AISI 1045–AISI 1045) under full contact condition on a semi-infinitely plate.3 If q is the intensity of non-
were also analyzed. Furthermore, stress distribution uniform load distribution, the deflection produced at
under different geometric dimensions was analyzed to point O at a distance x from the shaded element
prove its effectiveness. qdx of the load can be expressed as equation (2)
(Figure 3(a)).
Establishment of theoretical model 2q d ð1 þ Þq
u¼ ln  ð1Þ
As shown in Figure 1, during the press-fitting process, E x E
the diameter of the shaft is reduced under the contact
pressure, and the diameter of the hole is increased. where  is the Poisson’s ratio; E is the elastic modu-
Since the contact behavior in the contact region is lus; d is the position of the reference point.
very complicated, it is assumed that the deformation
of the contact region is evenly distributed in the axial 2q d ð1 þ Þq
du ¼ ln dx  dx ð2Þ
direction. Due to axial symmetry of the shaft–hub E x E
structure and contact pressure distribution, the inter-
ference fitting couple can be simplified as a plane
strain case. As shown in Figure 2, the contact pressure Therefore, the total deflection at point O is
is affected by the noncontact regions of the shaft (red
Z Z
dotted line) and hub (green dotted line).10 For differ- 2 Lþs
d ð 1 þ Þ Lþs
uo ¼ q ln dx  qdx ð3Þ
ent materials and structure rigidity, deformation of E s x E s
the shaft, u1, is different from the hub, u2. But, the
shaft and the hub have unique contact pressure at Equation (3) also can be used for finding the inten-
the same contact position because force equilibrium sity q of load distribution, which produces a constant
in the radial direction. Therefore, the stress of the deflection along the loaded portion of the straight
shaft and the hub are the same when their deform- boundary. So the distribution of the pressure along
ation is u1 and u2, respectively. So the noncontact the portion (Figure 3(b)) is given by the following
equation12

2FC
q ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð4Þ
 L2  ð2x  LÞ2

where FC is the equivalent concentrated force, and the

unit is N/mm.

Figure 1. Contact behavior in the press-fit process. Figure 2. Simplified model.

Wang et al. 2837

Figure 3. The principle of deflection at point O (a) and its equivalent model (b).

Figure 5. Simplified model for resistant force.

Figure 4. Simplified model for press-mounting force

prediction. The resistant force can be calculated by the
simplified model proposed by Wang et al.10 which is
shown in Figure 5, and the calculation equation is as
Therefore, to predict the stress distribution, the follows.
concentrated force should be calculated first.
Before calculating the concentrated force, its role 1 E1
FL1 ¼   d1
ð7Þ
in calculating the press-mounting force was analyzed. 4 1  21 ln min 1
For the contact pressure is nonuniformly distributed,
the press-mounting force can be solved by integration. 2 E2
FL2 ¼   d2
ð8Þ
Z L
4 1  22 ln min
2FC 2

F ¼ 2rf qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffidx ¼ 2rfFC ð5Þ

0
 L2  ð2x  LÞ2 where 1 is the decrement of external radius of shaft;
2 is the increment of internal radius of hub; E1 and
where r is the contact radius, and f is the friction E2 are the elastic modulus of shaft and hub, respect-
coefficient. ively; 1 and 2 are the Poisson’s ratio of shaft and
Furthermore, the press-mounting force can also be hub, respectively; d1 and d2 are the position of the
calculated by the theoretical model which was built by reference point; min_1 and min_2 are equivalent resist-
dividing the geometric model into three parts: contact ant force point of shaft and hub, respectively.
region, noncontact regions of the shaft and hub The contact pressure qT, deformation 1 and 2 can
(Figure 4).10 Similarly, the contact pressure is also be calculated by TCT.
decomposed into three parts. Therefore, the press-
mounting force can be expressed as equation (6). M
qT ¼ 2  2  ð9Þ
r ri þr2 ro þr2
E1 r2 r2i
þ 1 þ Er2 r2o r2
 2
F ¼ 2rfðqT L þ FL1 þ FL2 Þ ð6Þ
 
where qT is the contact pressure; FL1 and FL2 is the qT r r2i þ r2
1 ¼ þ 1 ð10Þ
resistant force generated by noncontact regions of the E1 r2  r2i
shaft and hub, respectively.
2838
 
qT r r2o þ r2
2 ¼   2 ð11Þ
E2 r2o  r2
where ri is the internal radius of the shaft; ro is the
external radius of the hub, and M ¼ 1 þ 2 is the half
of interference value Z.
Since the equation (5) equals to equation (6), the
concentrated force can be expressed as the following
equation
FC ¼ qT L þ FL1 þ FL2 ð12Þ
Substituting equation (12) into equation (4), the
stress distribution can be obtained.
2ðqT L þ FL1 þ FL2 Þ
q¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð13Þ
 L2  ð2xLÞ2
Experiment and numerical simulation
Experiment
In order to accurately measure the press-mounting
force, an automatic press-fit instrument was built
up. As shown in Figure 6, the press-fit instrument is
composed of binocular vision device, upper and lower
fixtures, XY precision stages, and force–displacement
measurement module, and so on. Loading and
unloading are achieved by the ball screw actuator
driving upper fixture to move up and down. Press-
mounting force and displacement are measured
by the force sensor and linear grating scale, respect-
ively. Binocular vision device is used to measure the
relative position of two parts to be assembled. The
XY precision guides are used to adjust parts’ relative
position. And this instrument was adjusted to meet
the requirement of precision assembly based on the
calibration method introduced in the research of
Lou et al.13
Figure 6. Automatic press-fit instrument.
Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 233(8)
To guarantee the measurement accuracy, Holtest
(E3, Mitutoyo Corporation) and Microcallipers
(Guilin Measuring & Cutting Tool Works) were
used to measure the diameter of the hole and shaft,
respectively. Mean value of the multiple measurement
data at different locations was used to calculate the
interference value. Then five sets of samples for each
interference value were sorted out. The surface rough-
ness of the shaft and hole was measured by portable
roughness gauge (TESA-rugosurf 10, Hexagon
Metrology) and surface profiler (ET4000A,
KOSAKA Laboratory Ltd.), respectively. Surface
roughness, Ra, of the shaft and hole is 0.18–0.24
and 0.75–0.84 mm, respectively, which indicates that
the contact surfaces’ quality is in good consistency.
Finally, press-fit experiments were carried out by the
automatic press-fit instrument under the same press-
ing velocity without any lubrication.
Since the friction coefficient is an important par-
ameter for numerical simulation and theoretical cal-
culation, assembly experiments were carried out. In
this research, Coulomb’s friction law was used to cal-
culate the friction coefficient. For the resistant force
affects the press-mounting force, the maximum press-
mounting force cannot directly be used to calculate
the friction coefficient.10 To avoid the influence of
resistant force, the increment of the press-mounting
force when the connection length increased from
L1 ¼ 0.5 mm to L2 ¼ 3.5 mm was used (see Figure 7).
So the calculating equation is shown as follows10

F
f¼ ð14Þ
2r2
LP
In equation (14),
F is the increment of press-
mounting force;
L ¼ L2  L1 is the increment of con-
tact length; P is the contact pressure which is calcu-
lated by TCT. As shown in Table 1, friction
coefficients under different interference values were
Figure 7. Press-fit curves obtained by experiments.
Wang et al. 2839

Table 1. Friction coefficients under different interference values.

Interference value/mm F1/N F2/N
F/N
L/mm P/MPa r2/mm f

12 198.1 575.6 377.5 3 102.41 2.2 0.089

14 207.49 660.2 452.7 3 119.48 2.2 0.091
16 249.9 753.8 503.9 3 136.54 2.2 0.089

Figure 8. Geometric dimension.

Figure 9. Boundary conditions.

calculated by equation (14). In the following analysis,
the average friction coefficient, 0.09, is used. Table 2. Mechanical properties of Ni36CrTiAl and
In Table 1, F1 and F2 are the press-mounting force 50Ni-50Fe.
at the contact length L1 and L2, respectively.
Young’s Yield Tangential
modulus Poisson’s strength modulus
Numerical simulation Part Material /GPa ratio /MPa /MPa

Since the stress distribution in the contact surface is Hub Ni36CrTiAl 157 0.34 686 942
very difficult to detect, the validity of the theoretical Shaft 50Ni-50Fe 186 0.3 882 1116
model can be verified by FEM. Therefore, a 3D FE
model was set up, and this simulation was realized by
ANSYS Workbench.
The geometric dimension of the shaft and hub is
shown in Figure 8. The element size was set as
0.1 mm. For axisymmetric characteristic of the
model, only a quarter of the connection was modeled
with hexahedral elements. The number of the elem-
ents and nodes are 68859 and 299345, respectively.
The maximum skewness is 0.5278. Boundary condi-
tions are shown in Figure 9.
For the presented FE model, the interference
value is defined by setting an offset of the mating sur-
face. The materials of the hub and shaft are
Ni36CrTiAl (3J1) and 50Ni-50Fe (1J50), respectively,
and the material parameters are listed in Table 2.14
The friction coefficient between shaft and hub is set
as 0.09. Figure 10. Comparison between numerical and experimental
In order to prove the validity of the finite element results.
model, the press-mounting force obtained by numer-
ical simulation were compared with experimental of the contact surface. The results indicate that this
results. As shown in Figure 10, the numerical results modeling method can guarantee the accuracy of
are in good agreement with experimental results, and numerical simulation and can be used in the analysis
the small deviation may be caused by the form error of stress distribution.
2840
Results and discussion
Analysis of stress distribution in the press-fit process
In this section, the theoretical model established in
this paper was used to predict the stress distribution.
For the shaft and hub have a similar stress distribu-
tion, the stress distribution on the shaft surface was
analyzed in this section. To verify the effectiveness of
the theoretical model, comparison between prediction
and numerical results was performed.
The parameters for calculating the resistant force
are listed in Table 3,10 and the method of obtaining
these parameters will be described in the following
sections.
Equation (13) is used to calculate the stress distri-
bution, but the contact pressure is infinite when x
equals to zero and L. So, in order to obtain a reason-
able stress distribution and maximum stress, the
effective contact length should be determined first.
In this research, the effective contact length is defined
as [
l, L
l], and the contact stress will reach the
maximum value at the contact boundary. In order to
determine the optimal
l, maximum stresses were cal-
culated by equation (13) and compared with numer-
ical results. Since it is not possible to analyze all the
mating lengths, three contact lengths under short-fit,
medium-fit, and long-fit states were selected for ana-
lysis, namely 1.3, 2.3, and 3.3 mm. As shown in
Figure 11, variation of maximum stresses with
l
under different contact lengths were compared with
the numerical results, and the best value of
l was
marked in this figure. Similarly, the values of
l
Table 3. Parameters for calculation of resistant force.
d1/mm d2/mm min_1/mm min_2/mm
12 14 0.0022 0.0033
Figure 11. Variation of maximum stresses with
l under
different contact lengths (Z ¼ 0.008 mm).
Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 233(8)
under different interference values were also obtained
(see Figure 12).
As shown in Figure 11, when the contact length is
1.3, 2.3, and 3.3 mm, the value of
l is 0.012, 0.024,
and 0.017 mm, respectively. The average value,

l ¼ 0.02 mm, is taken to calculate the maximum
stress. Compared with the numerical results, the rela-
tive errors of the maximum stress in medium-fit and
long-fit states are less than 10%, while the relative
error is less than 17% in the short-fit state.
Therefore, an acceptable prediction can be obtained
when the value of
l is 0.02 mm. Furthermore, it is
easy to find that
l does not vary monotonically with
contact length, which may be caused by the change of
the structure rigidity at the contact boundary during
the assembly process. As shown in Figure 8, the flange
leads to a large rigidity of the initial fitting section of
the hub, which increases the deformation and normal
stress of the shaft. As the contact length continues to
increase, the structural rigidity of the shaft–hub
mating section also changes, resulting in a nonmono-
tonic change in the maximum normal stress, as well as
the
l. Similarly, for different interference values,
l
can be determined as 0.03 mm using the same method.
As a result, different maximum normal stresses will be
obtained by these two values. By considering this situ-
ation, these two values were used to get a range of
maximum normal stresses.
Based on the above analysis, the stress distribution
under different contact lengths was calculated by the
theoretical model and compared with the numer-
ical results (see Figure 13). Obviously, the theoretical
results are in good agreement with the numerical
results. The prediction results under different interfer-
ence values were calculated by setting the
l as
0.03 mm and compared with the numerical results
(Figure 14). Obviously, theoretical results are consist-
ent with numerical results, which indicate that the
theoretical model can accurately reflect the influence
of interference value on stress distribution.
Figure 12. Variation of maximum stresses with
l under
different interference values (L ¼ 3.3 mm).
Wang et al.
Furthermore, it is easy to find that the theoretical
results are symmetric distribution but the numerical
results not. This may be caused by the nonuniform
distribution of the deformation for structural
Figure 13. Normal stress distribution of the shaft under
different contact lengths (
l ¼ 0.02, Z ¼ 0.008 mm).
Figure 14. Normal stress distribution of the shaft under
different interference values (
l ¼ 0.03, L ¼ 3.3 mm).
Figure 15. Radial position of the contact surface (Z ¼ 0.008 mm).
2841
asymmetry, especially at the part’s end near the con-
tact boundary (Figure 15).
For the stress concentration is an important factor
affecting the surface wear and part’s performance,
minimum and maximum stresses under different con-
tact lengths and interference values were calculated
and compared with the numerical results. The com-
parison results are shown in Figures 16 and 17.
As shown in Figures 16 and 17, the minimum stres-
ses obtained by the theoretical model are in good
agreement with numerical results, and the relative
errors are less than 12%. In particular, when the con-
tact length equals 3.3 mm, the relative error is less
than 5%. It is easy to find that the longer the contact
length, the smaller the relative error. By analyzing the
simplified process of the theoretical model and
deformation distribution of the contact region, the
prediction deviation may be caused by the following
reasons. The theoretical model assumes that the
deformation of the contact region is uniformly distrib-
uted in the axial direction, but actually it is nonuni-
form especially near the contact boundary. In
addition, the smaller the contact length, the more
uneven of the deformation distribution of the contact
region (Figure 15). As a result, there is a larger pre-
diction deviation at a shorter contact length.
The range of the maximum stresses under different
contact lengths and interference values are shown in
Figures 16 and 17, respectively. The results show that
the maximum stress obtained by numerical simulation
does not change monotonously with the contact
length, which is different from the theoretical results.
This may be caused by the change of structural rigid-
ity of the mating section during the press-fit process
for structural asymmetry. As shown in Figure 15,
variation in the inhomogeneities of deformation dis-
tribution also supports this view. In addition, the
maximum stress will increase with the increase of
interference value. To evaluate the prediction accur-
acy of the maximum stress, the following relative
error calculation criterion is adopted: If the numerical
results are included in the theoretical range, the rela-
tive error is considered to be zero. Otherwise, the
2842
Figure 16. The influence of contact length on prediction
accuracy (Z ¼ 0.008 mm).
Figure 17. The influence of interference value on prediction
accuracy (L ¼ 3.3 mm).
relative error between the numerical results and the
adjacent theoretical boundary is calculated. Based on
this criterion, the relative error under different contact
lengths and interference values were obtained and are
shown in Figures 16 and 17. The results show that
when the contact length is longer than 2 mm, the rela-
tive error is less than 10%, even under different inter-
ference values.
Based on above analysis, the theoretical model has
high accuracy in prediction of the stress distribution,
and this model can be used to predict minimum and
maximum stresses with an acceptable relative error
less than 10% with a longer contact length.
Analysis of stress distribution of full
contact condition
As shown in Figure 18, a short hub fits with a longer
shaft, which is basically consistent with the theoretical
model proposed in this paper. In order to study the
prediction precision of stress distribution in this con-
dition, numerical simulation was carried out with dif-
ferent contact lengths and interference values. In this
Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 233(8)
Figure 18. A short hub fits with a longer shaft.
Figure 19. Stress distribution under different contact lengths.
simulation, the hub and shaft still adopt the mechan-
ical properties in Table 2. Different from the contact
status in the press-fit process, the concentrated forces,
in this case, is all generated by the noncontact regions
of the shaft. So the resistant force FL2 equals to FL1,
and the concentrated force becomes as equation (15).
FC ¼ qT L þ 2FL1 ð15Þ
Compared with the numerical results,
l was deter-
mined as 0.06 mm. The comparison results of the
stress distribution under different contact lengths
and interference values are shown in Figures 19
and 20, respectively. The comparison results show
that the prediction results are good agreement with
the numerical results, and the relative error of the
maximum stress is less than 17%. The deviation
between theoretical and numerical results may be
caused by the difference of the deformation distribu-
tion between the actual and theoretical model. As
shown in Figure 21, the deformation is uniformly dis-
tributed of the theoretical model (Figure 21(a)), while
it is nonuniformly distributed in the actual condition
(Figure 21(b)), which was also analyzed in paragraph
4 of the ‘‘Results and discussion’’ section.
Wang et al.
The comparison of the deformation distribution
between numerical and theoretical results also
proves this analysis (Figure 22). Furthermore, the
numerical results show that, unlike the asymmetrical
distribution in the press-fit process, the stress, in this
case, is symmetrically distributed because the hub and
the shaft are overlap-connected in the press-fit process
which is different from the full contact condition.
Stress distribution analysis of AISI 1045 steel
interference fit
To analyze the feasibility of the theoretical model for
different material pairs, stress distribution of AISI
Figure 20. Stress distribution under different interference
values.
Figure 21. Comparison of the deformation between
theoretical model (a) and numerical model (b).
Figure 22. Deformation distribution of the contact surface of the hub.
2843
1045 steel interference fit was analyzed in this section,
and the parts’ geometric dimension is shown in
Figure 23. The Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio
are 2.09e5 MPa and 0.3, respectively. Before this ana-
lysis, the parameters d1, d2, min_1, and min_2 should
be determined at first. So a numerical simulation was
implemented (Figure 24). As shown in Figure 25, the
deformation distribution under different d1 was
obtained by equation (16)10 and compared with
numerical results. The result shows that the optimal
value of d1 is 1.5 mm. The optimal value of d2 was
obtained as 4.5 mm using the same method. Finally,
the stress distribution can be calculated.
 
4FL 1  2 d
¼ ln ð16Þ
E 
As shown in Figures 26 and 27, the deformation
distributions of the shaft and hub under different
resistant forces were obtained by FEM and equation
(16), and they are in good agreements. min_1 and
min_2 under different concentrated forces were calcu-
lated using equation (17).10 The calculation results are
listed in Table 4, and their mean values are 2.39e-5
and 1.19e-5 mm, respectively.
 
E
min ¼ d  exp  ð17Þ
4FL ð1  2 Þ
Figure 23. Geometric dimension of interference fitting parts.
2844 Proc IMechE Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 233(8)

Figure 24. Simplified model of deformation simulation: Figure 27. Deformation distribution of the hub.
(a) shaft, and (b) hub.

Table 4. min_1 under different resistant forces.

FL1/N/mm Z1/mm Z2/mm min_1/mm min_2/mm

25 0.77e-3 0.89e-3 2.37e-5 1.19e-5

50 1.53e-3 1.78e-3 2.41e-5 1.19e-5
75 2.30e-3 2.67e-3 2.35e-5 1.19e-5
100 3.06e-3 3.56e-3 2.41e-5 1.19e-5

Figure 25. Determination of parameter d1

(2FL1 ¼ 200 N/mm).

Figure 28. Stress distribution under different contact lengths

(Z ¼ 0.010 mm).

Figures 28 and 29, the theoretical results are com-

Figure 26. Deformation distribution of the shaft.
To verify the theoretical results, numerical simula-
tions were also carried out using the same modeling
approach in the previous analysis. Compared with the
numerical results,
l was set as 0.08 mm. As shown in
pared with the numerical results. Obviously, the the-
oretical results are basically consistent with the
numerical results, and the relative error of the max-
imum stress is less than 10%. However, the deviation
of the minimum stress increases with the increase of
the interference value. This may be caused by the dif-
ference of deformation distribution between actual
and theoretical model which was analyzed above.
But the minimum stress is not important for surface
wear and quality estimation. So the theoretical model
Wang et al.
Figure 29. Stress distribution under different interference
values (L ¼ 4.6 mm).
Figure 30. Stress distribution under different radius groups
(ri-r-ro) (L ¼ 4.6 mm and Z ¼ 0.010 mm).
can be used for prediction of stress distribution of
different material pairs especially the maximum
stress. It should be noted that the calculation param-
eters of resistant force should be re-determined when
the material changes.
In order to verify the prediction accuracy of the
model under different dimensions, the stress distribu-
tions with different radius groups (ri-r-ro) were
analyzed, and the comparison results are shown in
Figure 30. Obviously, the prediction results are in
good agreement with the numerical results, which indi-
cates that the different dimensions and influencing fac-
tors can be analyzed after the parameters of a specific
material were determined. Therefore, the numerical
analysis is once and for all, and the theoretical model
can be applied to more extensive analysis, such as com-
plex structures and different operating conditions.
Conclusion
As in the press-fit process, the stress distribution of
the contact surface will be affected by the noncontact
2845
regions, resulting in stress concentration at the con-
tact boundary. Since the stress concentration is an
important factor for surface wear and reduction of
connection quality, this study proposed a simplified
model to establish a theoretical model to predict the
stress distribution in the press-fit process. The influen-
cing factors, such as the contact length and interfer-
ence value, were also considered. Furthermore, the
stress distributions of different material pairs
(Ni36CrTiAl – 50Ni-50Fe, AISI 1045 – AISI 1045)
under full contact conditions were also analyzed.
The results show that the theoretical results are
in good agreement with the numerical results which
indicate that the theoretical model has a high accuracy
in prediction of stress distribution and maximum
stress with the relative error less than 17%.
Furthermore, the theoretical model can also be used
for prediction of the stress distribution of different
material pairs and geometric dimensions. Therefore,
the new theoretical model can give reasonable results
and provide a reliable approach for the design of
interference fits. In addition, the model provides a
method for the optimization of interference analysis
under different structures and working conditions.
For further research, the establishment of this model
provides a theoretical basis for real-time estimation of
the interference value distribution (form error) in
the press-fit process and evaluation of the contact
surface wear.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial
support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article: This research was supported by the
National Science and Technology Major Project of China
(grant no. 2013ZX0400109) and the Major Project of Basic
Scientific Research of Chinese Ministry (grant no.
JCYK2016 205A003).
ORCID iD
Xingyuan Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1897-3746
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