A New Manufacturing Technology Applied on the Automobile Steering Knuckle Process

Steering knuckle is one of the key parts of the automobile, which connects the front axle with the two front wheels and drives the front wheels rotating in the kingpins to steer the automobile. This kind of parts always bears variable impact load and is prone to be damaged when its fatigue strength limit is reached. To improve the surface quality, fatigue strength and eliminate residual stress, the final step of the traditional technology on the steering knuckle manufacturing is grind or to lapped to sizes usually. But the structure of this kind of parts is so complex sometimes that the parts are not easily positioned while grinding. That is to say that manufacturing the steering knuckle is timewasting and hard to sizes. This paper introduces a new technology named Hawking which is combined with CNC machine tool to manufacture the steering knuckle instead of grinding. The application of Hawking is not only operated easily but also can improve the steering knuckle's surface hardness, wear resistance and prolong the fatigue life which has solved the problem of high production cost and low efficiency in traditional process of manufacturing the automobile steer knuckles.