Stress Points on a Hub

I recently had some help with stress analysis results. In one of the repys it was mentioned that i needed to understand the physical loading of the part/assembly. I am struggling to understand this on a part i have been looking at, a bicycle hub. I can not get my around where the loads should be applied. ie. Axle, Bearing or the flange that retains the spokes. So really my question is how would you stress test this to see if it was fit for function???

what seems like a simple problem can be very complex. Do you have the entire thing drawn up? Cranks and all? I dont remember if the new release inventor can do assembly fea yet( i dont think so). I would start with the cranks. Unless you have clips you are only going to be applying a downard force on one pedal. You have the most leverage when the pedal is around 3oclock. For the purpose of this you can take your weight and add a little to it for a rough number and apply that force on the crank(pedal) downard. From there you can see the reaction forces generated. The force on the pedal is going to apply a torque on the hub and also translate that downward force as well. This is the Sum of Forces and Sum of moments in a dynamic problem. The problem from here is now you are down to bearings and races and their contact points. How accurate are you trying to be with the analysis?

If you do an internet search there are enough bicycle force problems out there that you can probably come up with some accurate forces and load directions. I remember designing a bicycle frame in a very simple fea package in a mechanical design class.

I am trying to be quite accurate with the results. This is a project I am working on for myself(not for work). I can see what you are saying about the dynamic loads. At the moment i havn't modelled the hub. I am just trying to get it straight in my head. The other problem I have is when the hub is loaded statically. i.e. rider weight.

when the hub is loaded in a static situation you can effectively have a single force distribution along the hub(because this is a 3d problem). This problem gets complicated because of the bearing loads. What you will have to do is draw single blocks. Meaning both crank arms and a fake hub(no bearings or anything) and see how the stress is distributed. One thing that can help is drawing the entire assembly(bearings and all) and doing a dynamic analysis of it.