Automobile suspensions and aircraft main landing gears, which are critical safety components, require extremely high strength and reliability. Therefore, a seamless design using high-carbon steel is necessary. Conventional designs have been manufactured using sand casting, making it difficult to incorporate rib structures into the products. In this study, we utilized ultra-fine spheroidal graphite cast iron, developed through joint research, to enable mold casting and the application of rib structures. This allowed us to establish a new design approach that avoids the generation of hard inclusions resulting from high carbon content, thus maintaining fatigue strength. As the subject of our research, we used the steering knuckle of an automobile and designed models with rib structures of 2, 3, 4, and 5mm under various manufacturing conditions. We conducted structural analysis under severe driving conditions and investigated the heat dissipation performance of the steering knuckle, as well as the thermal impact on the wheel hub bearing due to the addition of other components using heat transfer analysis. From the structural analysis, we found that increasing the rib thickness enhances rigidity, while heat transfer analysis revealed that reducing the rib thickness provides better heat dissipation. Thus, indicating a trade-off relationship between structural integrity and thermal performance is specified and supported for balanced design.
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