Case Study: Life Fitness achieves accurate bushing-wear predictions and improved equipment reliability with ANSYS

Designing Fitness Equipment to Withstand the Workout

Life Fitness, a global leader in commercial and consumer fitness equipment, faced a challenge accurately predicting contact pressures and bushing wear in electromechanical assemblies where axial misalignment produces highly non‑uniform pressure distributions. Traditional Hertzian formulas and catalog average‑pressure values could not capture the localized peaks that drive wear, so Life Fitness turned to ANSYS and used ANSYS Mechanical to better simulate real operating conditions.

ANSYS implemented surface‑to‑surface contact element technology (using TARGE170 and CONTA174 with second‑order solid elements) to model three‑dimensional shaft/bushing contact including misalignment, without artificial constraints. The ANSYS analysis revealed maximum contact pressures 35% higher than the Hertzian reference of 1,700 psi (roughly 2,295 psi) and nearly 10× the 250 psi average used in traditional calculations, enabling accurate wear‑rate predictions and guiding Life Fitness’s selection of bushing/shaft materials and surface finishes to improve product reliability. ANSYS provided the simulation fidelity that led to these measurable design insights.

Life Fitness

Patrick Tibbits

Staff Engineer