Effects of mechanical flexibility on joint wear in multibody systems with different flexibilities

By integrating wear prediction with flexible multibody dynamics, the wear at the revolute clearance joint in flexible mechanical systems was predicted. The flexible component was modeled by using absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF)-based element. The contact force in the clearance joint was calculated using continuous contact force model. The clearance joint was modeled as a dry contact pair, in which the continuous contact force model proposed by Lankanrani and Nikravesh was applied to evaluate the normal contact force, and the friction effect was considered using the LuGre friction model. The calculation of wear was performed by an iterative wear prediction procedure based on Archard's wear model. In order to improve computational efficiency, the parallel computation procedure was introduced. Using this approach, a planar slider-crank mechanism including a flexible rod and clearance joint was numerically investigated as a demonstrative example. Furthermore, the effects of the flexibility of the mechanism and the clearance size on the wear at clearance joint were also studied. The results show that mechanical flexibility not only highly deadened the impacts at the revolute clearance joint, but also weakened the joint wear. Furthermore, this influence was more obvious when the mechanism had a higher flexibility.