Causes of crankshaft failure

Acknowledgment

First of all glory to the Almighty God for every thing that he done to me every
time and every where. My number one gratitude goes to the adminstration staff
members of the three maintenance workshops that the data were gathered.

My deepest thank goes to my lecturer Mr Assefa Gelaw for giving me this

precious chance to write this report in order develop my report writing skill.
 Causes of crankshaft failure

Table of content
1) Acknowledgment ............................I
2) Table of content ..............................ll
3) Table of illustrations ......................lll
4) List of acronyms and initials .........lV
5) Abstract ..........................................V
6) Introduction ....................................1
7) Methodology ...................................2
8) Results .............................................2
9) Discussion .......................................4
10) Conclusion .......................................5
11) Recommendation ............................5
12) References .......................................6
 Causes of crankshaft failure

List of illustration
1) Table one………………………………………………………………………….....2
2) Table two………………………………………………………………………….....3
3) Table three……………………………………………………………………….....4
 Causes of crankshaft failure

List of acronyms and initials

1. AO - adulterated oil
2. BOF - bad oil filter
3. IAI - improved automotive innovations
4. IMS - improved maintenance system
5. IOLS - improved oil lubrication
6. OL - oil leakage
7. OPS - oil pan seal problem
8. OPP - oil pump problem (i.e., improper oil supply to the engine)
 Causes of crankshaft failure

9. PM - poor maintenance practice

10. PR - poor reconditioning
11. SSF - poor shaft surface finish
12. TBM - thrust bearing misalignment

Abstract

This report presents an investigation on the causes of crankshaft failure in

three maintenance workshops of Bahir Dar town. Crankshaft is a mechanical
device that imports rotational motion to the wheels. The main objective of
the report was to identify the main causes of crankshaft failure on vehicles.
Data were collected and analyzed from three different maintenance
workshops in Bahir Dar town from 2000 to 2006. Thus, the causes were
found similar for all categories of vehicles under study. The rate of
 Causes of crankshaft failure

crankshaft failure were different from one category of vehcle to the other. It
is recommended to perform more investigation on the causes of crankshaft
failure in detail.

Introduction
Transportation is one of the human activities that were originated from the time of
creation of human beings. Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American
English), is the movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another,
Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and space.
The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations.( Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia). Land transportation is one of the primary forms that gear the
modernization and civilization forward to its limit. There are different forms of land
transportation ranging from different types vehicles to trains and so on. Vehicles are
diversified in there form, function and foundation material like automobiles9 private
cars0, commercial cars, Lories, trucks and so on. The major and important part of all
 Causes of crankshaft failure

vehicles is engine, which is a machine for converting any of various forms of energy into
mechanical force and motion. (Merriam-Webster) Engines have different components
with different functions such as crankshaft, cylinder, piston can with cam shaft, piston
pin and so on. Crankshaft is the very important engine component that converts the
reciprocating motion to rotational movement of wheels.

The crankshaft is essentially the backbone of the internal combustion engine. The

crankshaft is responsible for the proper operation of the engine and converting a linear
motion to a rotational motion. (Materials Science and Materials Engaineering 2016).
Since it is the crucial part that imports rotation to the wheels, its failure causes a series
problem for the vehicle. There are different sources of crankshaft failure. A reaearch
was conducted on the causes of crankshaft failure at three workshops of Bahir Dar town
from 2000-2005. The main aim of the research was to investigate causes of automobile
crankshaft engine failures at three workshop of Bahir Dar town in 2000-2005. The
objective of the study was to identify the primary causes of crankshaft failure in three
different workshops of Bahir Dar town from 2000-2005. The specific objectives were to
examine which type of vehicle (private car, commercial car or buses) is more venerable
to crankshaft failure, to assess the improvements of crankshaft failure between those
years.

Methodology
The purpose of failure investigation is to determine the root cause(s). Because
determination of the cause of a problem is half way to the solution. The three
workshops were selected randomly and three different groups were set, one category of
vehicle was specialized on private car, the second category was specialized on
commercial business and the third category was specialized on commercial buses. Then
the data were gathered via interview and questionnaire administration from three
maintenance workshops, and causes of failure was identified.

Results
The data that was gathered from the three workshops were gathered through interview
and questionnaire. The numbers of failure of the crankshaft for the particular category
of vehicle for a particular year due to the mentioned causes have the following result
shown in the tables:
 Causes of crankshaft failure

k Brand/ Maintenan Years i No. of Service Identified causes

category ce Failure d of failure
of vehicle Work shop per vehicle
specialize year, in seven
d on fi years
Si
1 Private car Workshop A 2000 1 12 49 OL, OD, TBM,
2001 2 10 PR, AO, OPP,
2002 3 8 SSF, PM, BOF,
2003 4 7 OPS
2004 5 5
2005 6 4
2006 7 3

Table 1 Causes of automobile crankshaft engine failures at three workshop of Bahir

Dar town in 2000-2005
The types of vehicle that were selected from Workshop A, were all private cars. A total
of 49 cars were serviced in seven years. From the seven years the maximum number of
failure was 12 number of failures in the year 2000, and the least number of failures
were serviced in the year 2006, which was 3.

k Brand/ Maintenan Years i No. of Service Identified causes

category ce Failure d of failure
of vehicle Work shop per vehicle
specialize year, in seven
d on fi years
Si
2 Commercia Workshop B 2000 1 10 34 OL, OD, TBM,
l car 2001 2 8 PR, AO, OPP,
2002 3 6 SF, PM, BOF,
2003 4 2 OPS
2004 5 1
2005 6 3
2006 7 4

Table 2 Causes of commercial car crankshaft engine failures at three workshop of Bahir Dar
town in 2000-2005
 Causes of crankshaft failure

A total of 34 commercial cars were serviced for crankshaft failure in the seven years of
study in maintenance Workshop B. Of number of failures serviced in those seven years a
maximum number of failure were occurred in 2000 (10 failures), and the minimum
number of failure were occurred on 2004 (1 failure).

k Brand/ Maintenan Years i No. of Service Identified causes

category ce Failure d of failure
of vehicle Work shop per vehicle
specialize year, in seven
d on fi years
Si
3 Commercia Work shop 3 2000 12 43 AO, OPP,
l Buses 2001 10 SSF, PM, BOF
2002 7 OPS, OL, OD,
2003 2 TBM, PR.
2004 5
2005 3
2006 4

Table 3 Causes of commercial buses crankshaft engine failures at three workshop of

Bahir Dar town in 2000-2005
From Workshop C, 43 commercial buses were serviced for crankshaft failure within the
seven years. From those years 2000 was with the maximum no of failure that is 12
failures, but 2003 was with the least number of failures that is 2.

Discussion
The above result shows that there are different causes of crankshaft failure. These
failures were more frequent in the first two years of the investigation but on the
upcoming years the frequency has dropped from two digit number to one digit number.
The reasons for these improvements are IOLS (Improved oil lubrication), which reduces
the rate of crankshaft failure due to OL (Poor oil leakage), IMS (improved maintenance
system) that reduces the crankshaft failure rate due to PM (poor maintenance practice),
furthermore IAI (improved automotive innovations) results good improvement on the
resistance of crankshaft failure. The private vehicles (automobiles) are highly exposed to
 Causes of crankshaft failure

crankshaft failure (49 vehicles per seven years) than the commercial cars and buses and
the commercial buses are more exposed relative to the commercial cars.

Conclusion
In this report, the main causes of crankshaft failure in three workshops of Bahir Dar
town. Based on the above results and discussion the main causes of crankshaft failure
are OD, TBM, PR, SSF, AO, OPP, BOF and OPS. Improper oil lubrication (OL) and Poor
maintenance practice (PM) were also one of the main causes but their effect was getting
reduced due to the listed improvements.

The following specific conclusions are also drawn, Private cars (Automobiles) are more
vernerable categories of vehicles to crankshaft failure than the other categories under
study. Crankshaft failure has been reduced from 2000 to 2006 due to improved
automotive innovations, improved maintenance system and improved oil
lubrication.

Recommendation
From the conclusion above it is recommended that further studies have to be
conducted to identity other potential causes of crankshaft failure. Additional
improvments shall be made on the identified causes of crankshaft failure. The article
"How does failure normally occurs in Crankshaft" on Motionicsllcblog
(https://motionicsllcblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/how-does-failure-normally-
occurs-in-crankshaft/) can be used as good starting line for future works.
 Causes of crankshaft failure

References
1) Heyes, A.M. Automotive component failure. Engineering Failure Analysis, 5(2), 129-
141.
2) Journal of Modern Technology and Engineering vol.3,No2,2018, pp.184-194

3)https://motionicsllcblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/how-does-failure
normally-occurs-in-crankshaft/
4) Wikipedia the free encyclopedia.
5) Meriem Webster