Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2005) 25: 883–887
DOI 10.1007/s00170-003-2022-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Z. Gu · S. Yang · S. Ku · Y. Zhao · X. Dai
Fracture splitting technology of automobile engine connecting rod
Received: 20 October 2003 / Accepted: 14 November 2003 / Published online: 2 February 2005
 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005
Abstract The fracture splitting method is an innovative process-
ing technique in the field of the automobile engine connecting
rod (con/rod) manufacturing. Compared with traditional method,
the technique has remarkable advantages. It can decrease manu-
facturing procedures, reduce equipment and tools investment and
save energy. Hence the total production cost is greatly reduced.
Furthermore, the technique can also improve product quality and
bearing capability. It provides a high quality, high accuracy and
low cost route for producing connecting rods (con/rods). The
method has attracted extensive attention and has been used in
some types of con/rods manufacturing. The process and its key
factors such as materials, notches for fracture splitting, frac-
ture splitting conditions and fracture splitting equipment are dis-
cussed in detail.
Keywords Automobile engine · Connecting rod ·
Fracture splitting · New process
1 Introduction
In recent years, with the rapid development of the automobile in-
dustry, the competition in the international automobile markets
has become more severe. New market conditions demand man-
ufacturers employ higher quality, greater efficiency and lower
cost manufacturing technology to fabricate automobile parts so
as to improve their competitive capability and meet the market
requirements. Therefore, many new technologies for producing
Z. Gu (u) · S. Yang · S. Ku · Y. Zhao
Institute of Roll Forging,
Jilin University,
Changchun, P.R. China
E-mail: gzweii@163.net
Tel.: +86-10-62782938
Fax: +86-10-62788675
X. Dai
Center for Laser Rapid Forming, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Tsinghua University,
Beijing, P.R. China
parts have been developed. The con/rod is an important part of
engine and its processing technology has been gaining great in-
tention. The fracture splitting technology of con/rod is an innova-
tive processing technique that appeared in the 1990s. Compared
with the traditional method, the process owns the advantages
of greatly improving product quality and production efficiency
and dramatically reducing cost and energy [1–4]. Therefore, the
technology has been studied and applied extensively. Some fa-
mous companies, such as GM Ford and Chrysler in the USA
and Benz and BMW in Germany, etc., employ the technology to
manufacture con/rods [5]. GM, Ford, MTS SYSTEM (America),
ALFING and EX-CELL-O (German), etc., have successfully de-
veloped production equipment and production lines for fracture
splitting con/rod [6, 7]. Now the technology is becoming mature.
It has a very low defect ratio and has been used in the mass pro-
duction of some types of con/rods.
2 Principle of con/rod fracture splitting technique
The con/rod processing procedure is shown in Fig. 1. The tradi-
tional method is a machining technique in which the big end of
a con/rod is cut off by a milling cutter and the con/rod is divided
into two parts: a cap and a rod. In the technique, there exist two
major requirements. (1) The cap and rod should have high preci-
sion rejoining surfaces, so many later machining procedures such
as rough grinding and finish grinding, etc., are required. (2) The
parts such as bolts used to position and the structures of whorl
hole are very complex, and still the whorl hole is demanded to
keep a high vertical level to surfaces. All these requirements
greatly increase the processing difficulty, procedures and cost.
However, the fracture splitting technique of con/rod, which is
a mechanical method, settles the above questions perfectly. From
Fig. 1, it can be seen that on the inner side of con/rod’s big end
hole two symmetrical notches with the same shape and size are
first broached, forming the starting point of splitting cracks out
of stress concentration effect. Then, a push key with wedge shape
is drawn to move downwards and push the fixture of the big end
to move transversely, resulting in the big end brittlely fracturing
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Fig. 1. Processing methods of con/rod
from two broached notches. At last these two split parts are as-
sembled with bolts on a special equipment so as to perform later
processes.
The 3D structure characteristic of uneven cleavage surfaces
can be seen in the process. It ensures a perfect fit between the cap
and rod, which makes the two parts accurately positioned and as-
sembled. Therefore, there is no need to machine joint surfaces of
the cap and rod and use abrasive finishing processes to process
the whorl hole and employ parts such as inserted pins, dow-
els or reamer bolts for positioning. The structures of traditional
Fig. 2. Processing of whorl hole
Fig. 3. Conventional con/rod and fracture splitting con/rod
bolt and whorl hole are simplified and the whole machining pro-
cess is also reduced. For example, as far as the processing of
whorl hole is concerned, the traditional method needs 14 proced-
ures, but it only requires six steps by applying fracture splitting
method (Fig. 2). It is reported that the fracture splitting process
can decrease manufacturing procedures by 60%, reduce equip-
ment and tools investment by 25% ∼ 35% and reduce energy use
by 40% [1, 7–9]. So the total production cost is reduced con-
siderably. The con/rods made by traditional method and fracture
splitting method are shown in Fig. 3.
3 Key influence factors of fracture splitting process
3.1 Materials of fracture splitting con/rod
The material of con/rod is a major factor that influences the
fracture splitting process. Material not only affects con/rod’s me-
chanical properties such as rigidity, hardness, tensile and fatigue
strength, but also directly influences fracture splitting ability and
cleavage surface quality. The material suitable for fracture split-
ting con/rod should have the following properties: (1) little de-
formation in fracture splitting; (2) good intensity; (3) proper brit-
 885

Table 1. Chemical composition of fracture splitting steel (%)

Designation C Si Mn P S Cr V

C70S6BY 0.72 0.22 0.50 0.009 0.06 ∼ 0.07 0.061 0.04

tleness; (4) good machinability [6]. At present, the materials that

can be used to make fracture splitting con/rod include powder
metallurgy material, malleable iron, nodular cast iron and high-
carbon micro-alloyed steel, etc. [6, 9]. But it is impossible to use
conventional micro-alloyed steels to fabricate fracture splitting
con/rod because there is too much ductility and plastic defor- Fig. 4. Notch depth affects the required fracture pressure
mation caused by fracture splitting pressure. Plastic deformation
does not permit the cap and rod accurately rejoining when as-
sembled. The smaller the deformation, the better the cleavage pressure for larger stress concentration coefficient. In production,
surfaces fit for each other. The chemical composition of material it is found that a proper scale of notch width or notch bottom
has very important effect on ductility. For example, decreasing radius is 0.1 ∼ 0.4 mm.
the content of Mn and N and increasing the content of Si and At present, there exists several ways to process notches. In
V will help to gain lower ductility. In production, the materials the broaching method a numerical controlled broach is employed
such as SPLITASCO70 and SPLITASCO50 (France), S53CV- to cut two symmetrical “V” shape notches on the inner side of
FS and S50CVS1 (Japan) and C70S6BY (Germany), etc., have con/rod big end hole. The method has several disadvantages.
been developed successfully and some of them have been used First, it is very difficult to keep the notch owning a stable shape
in the mass production of fracture splitting con/rod. The mate- and size because of the abrasion of tools during machining. The
rial C70S6BY is employed to fabricate con/rods for Jetta cars abrasion and bluntness of broach will increase the notch bottom
of FAW-Volkswagen (in China). Its main chemical composition radius and decrease the notch depth. The required splitting pres-
is shown in Table 1. In the steel, the content of Mn is low, V sure and deformation of the big end are therefore increased, and
is added for low ductility in Ferrite and S is added for the im- the defect ratio of products is also increased. The experimen-
provement of material machinability. The microstructure of the tal results in Fig. 5 show that the defect ratio increases with the
con/rod made of the material is pearlite and discontinuous ferrite. corner radius of the notch bottom. Secondly, the broach itself is
The hardness is 263 ∼ 310 HBS, the tensile strength is 900 + very expensive and special tool grinding equipment is required
150 MPa, the yield strength is 520 MPa and the largest elonga- so that the broach can be timely examined and ground to avoid
tion ratio is 10% [6]. excessive abrasion. All these will increase the production cost.
Thirdly, in order to increase the service life and decrease abra-
3.2 Notches for fracture splitting sion, a large quantity of coolant and lubricant is used to cool the
broach while machining. At the same time, to avoid the coolant
Notches are very important in the fracture splitting process. Be- and lubricant polluting other equipment, the fractured con/rod is
cause cracks first form at the two broached notches, from the required to be cleaned perfectly before it is transferred to next
stress concentration effect, and then with the radial pressure in- machining step. Laser processing notches is another method and
creasing the cracks extend outwards until the big end fractures
completely. Therefore, the location, shape and size of notches
will directly influence fracture splitting quality. Two notches
should be cut symmetrically and have the same shape and size.
The notch depth affects the required fracture splitting pressure
and further affects the deformation of the big end hole. The in-
fluence on the Jetta car con/rod notch depth on fracture splitting
pressure has been studied (Fig. 4). It can be seen that the re-
quired fracture splitting pressure decreases with the increasing
of the notch depth. The main reason for this is that the criti-
cal fracture stress of material turns small with the increasing of
stress concentration notch depth. But notch depth is limited by
the processing allowance of later operations. Experimental re-
sults show that the proper notch depth scale of the con/rod lies
in 0.4 ∼ 0.6 mm. The notch width or notch bottom radius is an-
other important factor in fracture splitting process. A small notch
width or notch bottom radius will efficiently decrease required Fig. 5. Broach corner affects the defect ratio
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has many advantages. For example, notch cutting by laser owns
a smaller width dimension than that by broach and its width size
can be controlled under 0.15 mm. The smaller width size will
further improve fracture splitting quality. The method can keep
a stable notch shape and size and has no tooling abrasion. There-
fore, it has been widely used in production. Its main disadvantage
is that the process will slightly increase the abrasion of tools ap-
plied in the later processing steps for the quenching effect of
laser cutting. Some companies such as ALFING and MAUSER
(Germany) using super high pressure water to cut notches can
also get good quality notches. It is reported that for the con/rod
made by the powder metallurgy process fracture splitting notches
can be created during compaction and do not require broaching
or laser machining procedures.
3.3 Fracture splitting conditions
The fracture splitting parameters mainly include fracture pres-
sure, backpressure and press speed, etc. The fracture pressure
relates to the material property and the shape and size of the
notch. Excessive fracture pressure will lead to too much defor-
mation of the big end hole. The proper backpressure helps to
improve the stability of the fracture splitting process, reduce the
deformation of the big end hole and increase the uniformity of
cleavage surface. The press speed affects cleavage surface qual-
ity. Increasing press speed can make the con/rod split brittle
and dramatically reduce the ductile fracture area of the whole
cleavage surface. The smaller ductile fracture area helps to more
accurately match the position. However, other research [10] in-
dicates that the width of ductile fracture area becomes narrow
and almost constant when the press speed reaches more than
100 mm/s (Fig. 6 shows their research results). It seems that it is
not necessary to increase press speed any further once it reaches
100 mm/s.
3.4 Fracture splitting equipment
The fracture splitting operation is performed on a special de-
signed fracture splitting equipment shown in Fig. 7. It is mainly
Fig. 6. Relation of press speed and width of ductile fracture
composed of (1) four clamp cylinders, (2) fixtures of big end,
(3) side guidance, (4) push key with wedge shape and (5) back-
pressure and reposition cylinder. Its working process is as fol-
lows. The small end and big end of the con/rod is fixed to their
fixtures on the jig, then the four clamp cylinders push their col-
lets to clamp the big end, a wedge-shaped push key quickly
moves downwards drawn by its pull cylinder, driving the fixture
of the big end sliding backwards. Thus, the big end is split up
into the cap and rod two parts. After, the cleavage surfaces are
cleaned by compressed air so as to remove small dregs affect-
ing match, the cap and bar are redeposited by backpressure, the
cylinder is repositioned and the two parts mesh with each other
accurately. During the process, an electro-hydraulic proportional
valve is used to control the pull cylinder to ensure the push key to
move downwards uniformly when splitting. To keep the accurate
reposition of the cap and bar, the jig should have very high guid-
ing precision. The fixture of the big end is a very important part
and its diameter size affects the splitting quality. A proper diam-
eter will help the big end hole endure a suitable force-bearing
state, which makes the big end gain very good splitting quality
and a minimal deformation. However, the diameter will decrease
out of abrasion, resulting in defect ratio mounting up dramati-
cally. The relation of the fixture diameter size and defect ratio has
been investigated (Fig. 8). Some common fracture splitting de-
fects include single side fracture, excessive deformation of big
Fig. 7. Fracture splitting jig
Fig. 8. Relation of fixture diameter and defect ratio

end hole, too much distortion of cleavage surface, and cracks
or broken big dregs of cleavage surface, etc. For the fracture
splitting of the Jetta car con/rod, if a fixture’s diameter abrasion
exceeds 0.5 mm, it can not be used any more for the rapid in-
creasing of defect ratio. On the other hand, the wedge angle of
push key affects splitting force and splitting quality. A proper
angle scale is 7 ∼ 10◦ . After the fracture splitting operation is fin-
ished, a manipulator is required to clamp the split con/rod and
transport it to assembly procedure. To keep the good fit state of
rod and bar, the manipulator must own high precision.
4 Conclusions
The fracture splitting process is an advanced manufacturing tech-
nology for automobile engine con/rods. It can greatly decrease
manufacturing operations, equipment and tool investment and en-
ergy. Hence the total production cost is considerably reduced. Fur-
thermore, the rough cleavage surfaces ensure the perfect match of
cap and rod and have larger joint surface area than conventional
machined smooth surfaces, so the processing accuracy, product
quality and bearing capability are dramatically improved, and still
the assembly operations are simplified and the finish engine qual-
ity is also improved. It provides a high quality, high accuracy and
low cost route for the mass production of con/rods.
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Acknowledgement This paper was supported by the National Innovation
Fund for Small Technology-Based Firms (No99C26212200182) and Jilin
University Young Teacher fund, and the authors appreciate Engineer Y. Yu
for his great help to this paper.
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