On the Influence of Contact Geometry on Grasp Stability

Author(s):  
Gert A. Kragten ◽  
Just L. Herder ◽  
A. L. Schwab

This paper demonstrates that the predicted grasp stability is highly sensitive to only small changes in the character of the contact forces. The contribution of the geometry and stiffness at the contact points to the grasp stability is investigated by a planar grasp with three contact points. Limit cases of zero and infinite contact curvatures, and finite to infinite contact stiffnesses are considered. The stability is predicted based on the approach of Howard and Kumar [1], and verified with multibody dynamic simulations. For rigid objects and fingers with only normal contact stiffness, the grasp stability is dominated by the contact geometry, whereas the local contact stiffness and preload have a minor effect. Furthermore, grasps with pointed finger tips are more likely to be stable than grasps with flat finger tips.

Author(s):  
Ji-Ho Kang ◽  
Eung Seon Kim ◽  
Seungyon Cho

In this study, an estimation method of graphite dust production in the pebble-bed type reflector region of Korean HCSB (Helium-Cooled Solid Breeder) TBM (Test Blanket Module) in the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project using FEM (Finite Element Method) was proposed and the amount of dust production was calculated. A unit-cell model of uniformly arranged pebbles was defined with appropriate thermal and mechanical loadings. A commercial FEM program, Abaqus V6.10 was used to model and solve the stress field under multiple contact constraints between pebbles in the unit-cell. Resulting normal contact forces and slip distances on contact points were applied into the Archard adhesive wear equation to calculate the amount of graphite dust. The friction effect on contact points was investigated. The calculation result showed that the amount of graphite dust production was estimated to 2.22∼3.67e−4 g/m3 which was almost linearly proportional to the friction coefficient. The analysis results will be used as the basis data for the consecutive study of dust explosion.


2013 ◽  
Vol 392 ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Ju Seok Kang

Multibody dynamics analysis is advantageous in that it uses real dimensions and design parameters. In this study, the stability analysis of a railway vehicle based on multibody dynamics analysis is presented. The equations for the contact points and contact forces between the wheel and the rail are derived using a wheelset model. The dynamics equations of the wheelset are combined with the dynamics equations of the other parts of the railway vehicle, which are obtained by general multibody dynamics analysis. The equations of motion of the railway vehicle are linearized by using the perturbation method. The eigenvalues of these linear dynamics equations are calculated and the critical speed is found.


Author(s):  
Christian M. Firrone ◽  
Marco Allara ◽  
Muzio M. Gola

Dry friction damping produced by sliding surfaces is commonly used to reduce vibration amplitude of blade arrays in turbo-machinery. The dynamic behavior of turbine components is significantly affected by the forces acting at their contact interfaces. In order to perform accurate dynamic analysis of these components, contact models must be included in the numerical solvers. This paper presents a novel approach to compute the contact stiffness of cylindrical contacts, analytical and based on the continuous contact mechanics. This is done in order to overcome the known difficulties in simultaneously adjusting the values of both tangential and normal contact stiffness experimentally. Monotonic loading curves and hysteresis cycles of contact forces vs. relative displacement are evaluated as a function of the main contact parameters (i.e. the contact geometry, the material properties and the contact normal load). The new contact model is compared with other contact models already presented in literature in order to show advantages and limitations. The contact model is integrated in a numerical solver, based on the Harmonic Balance Method (HBM), for the calculation of the forced response of turbine components with friction contacts, in particular underplatform dampers. Results from the nonlinear numerical simulations are compared with those from validation experiments.


2005 ◽  
Vol 128 (5) ◽  
pp. 1130-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed A. Shabana ◽  
Mahmoud Tobaa ◽  
Khaled E. Zaazaa

The effect of the geometry of a wheel profile that allows only a single point of contact with the rail is investigated in this study. The local geometric properties of this profile are compared with the local geometric properties of a profile that allows for two-point contacts in order to understand the basic differences between the two profiles. A simple model is first used to examine the effect of the profile geometry on the stability and nonlinear dynamics of a suspended wheel set. The results obtained using this simple model show that the geometry of the wheel profile can significantly alter the critical speed. A computational approach is then used to investigate and quantify the effect of the wheel geometry wheel on the dynamics and stability of railroad vehicles. Two methods, the contact constraint and elastic formulations, are used. The contact constraint method employs nonlinear algebraic kinematic constraint equations to describe the contact between the wheel and the rail. The contact kinematic constraints, which eliminate one degree of freedom and do not allow for wheel/rail separation, are imposed at the position, velocity and acceleration levels. The system equations of motion are expressed in terms of the generalized coordinates and the nongeneralized surface parameters. In the formulations based on the elastic approach, the wheel has six degrees of freedom with respect to the rail, and the normal contact forces are defined as a function of the penetration using Hertz’s contact theory or using assumed stiffness and damping coefficients. In the elastic approach that allows for wheel/rail separation, the locations of the contact points are determined by solving a set of algebraic equations. The distribution of the contact forces resulting from the use of the two profiles that have different geometric properties is investigated using the two methods. Numerical results are presented for a full railroad vehicle model and the effect of the wheel profile on the vehicle stability is investigated.


Author(s):  
Andrea Vania ◽  
Paolo Pennacchi ◽  
Steven Chatterton ◽  
Filippo Cangioli

The occurrence of spiral vibrations in rotating machines is a well-known but not very common phenomenon. However, this kind of shaft vibration, usually caused by light rubs between rotating and stationary parts, may give rise to a slow considerable increase of the amplitude of the synchronous (1X) vibration. Owing to the rubs, the normal contact forces cause a friction-induced thermal bow, which in turn determines rather slow changes in amplitude and phase of the 1X vibration vector. The curve described in a polar plot by the tip of the vibration vector is a spiral. The occurrence of expansive vibrations may cause serious damage. Many studies about this malfunction are focused on the stability analysis of spiral vibrations. Simplified or rather rigorous thermal models can be used to evaluate the friction-induced thermal bow of the shaft and the slow continuous migration of the hot spot generated on the external surface of the rotor. However, owing to the complexity of the problem, some basic parameters of the thermal models can be affected by a significant uncertainty. This paper shows some unconventional techniques that can provide useful information for optimizing the rotor-to-stator contact modelling as well as for tuning some critical parameters of the thermal models that affect the velocity with which the hot spot moves around the circumferential surface of the shaft. The effectiveness of these techniques is shown by means of the analysis of the experimental spiral vibrations detected in a steam turbine power unit.


Author(s):  
A Igeland

Short-wave railhead corrugation growth on tangent tracks due to wear from driven locomotive wheels is investigated. A track model with a given initial random railhead irregularity is used. The track parameters and the railhead irregularities are estimated from measurements performed on a newly built track. The corrugation calculations are based on rolling contact mechanics; a semi-empirical relationship between creep, friction force and normal contact force is employed. Only longitudinal creep and creep forces are taken into account. The vertical contact forces between the moving wheels and the rail are calculated using a time-stepping method, allowing for a non-linear Hertzian wheel/rail contact stiffness. Numerical examples are given. It is found that the two wheelsets of a travelling bogie interact and that both of them should be considered in the same calculation. The bogie wheelbase turns out to be an important parameter.


Author(s):  
Filipe Marques ◽  
Fernando Isaac ◽  
Nuno Dourado ◽  
António Pedro Souto ◽  
Paulo Flores ◽  
...  

An investigation on the dynamic modeling and analysis of spatial mechanisms with spherical clearance joints including friction is presented. For this purpose, the ball and the socket, which compose a spherical joint, are modeled as two individual colliding components. The normal contact-impact forces that develop at the spherical clearance joint are determined by using a continuous force model. A continuous analysis approach is used here with a Hertzian-based contact force model, which includes a dissipative term representing the energy dissipation during the contact process. The pseudopenetration that occurs between the potential contact points of the ball and the socket surface, as well as the indentation rate play a crucial role in the evaluation of the normal contact forces. In addition, several different friction force models based on the Coulomb's law are revisited in this work. The friction models utilized here can accommodate the various friction regimens and phenomena that take place at the contact interface between the ball and the socket. Both the normal and tangential contact forces are evaluated and included into the systems' dynamics equation of motion, developed under the framework of multibody systems formulations. A spatial four-bar mechanism, which includes a spherical joint with clearance, is used as an application example to examine and quantify the effects of various friction force models, clearance sizes, and the friction coefficients.


Author(s):  
Margarida Machado ◽  
Paulo Flores ◽  
Jorge Ambrósio

The aim of this work is to present an efficient methodology to deal with general 3D-contact problems. This approach embraces three steps: geometrical definition of 3D surfaces, detection of the candidate contact points, and evaluation of the contact forces. The 3D-contact surfaces are generated and represented by using parametric functions due to their simplicity and ease in handling freeform shapes. This task is carried during preprocessing, which is performed before starting the multibody analysis. The preprocessing procedure can be condensed into four steps: a regular and representative collection of surface points is extracted from the 3D-parametric surface; for each point the tangent vectors to the u and v directions of the parametric surface and the normal vector are computed; the geometrical information on each point is saved in a lookup table, including the parametric point coordinates, the corresponding Cartesian coordinates, and the components of the normal, tangent, and bitangent vectors; the lookup table is rearranged such that the u-v mapping is converted into a 2D matrix being this surface data saved as a direct access file. For the detection of the contact points, the relative distance between the candidate contact points is computed and used to check if the bodies are in contact. The actual contact points are selected as those that correspond to the maximum relative indentation. The contact forces are determined as functions of the indentation or pseudopenetration, impact velocity, and geometric and material properties of the contacting surfaces. In general, lookup tables are used to reduce the computation time in dynamic simulations. However, the application of these schemes involves an increase of memory needs. Within the proposed approach, the amount of memory used is significantly reduced as a result of a partial upload into memory of the lookup table. A slider-crank mechanism with a cup on the top of the slider and a marble ball are used as a demonstrative example. A contact pair is considered between a cup and a marble ball, the contact forces for which are computed using a dissipative contact model.


Author(s):  
Filipe Marques ◽  
Fernando Isaac ◽  
Nuno Dourado ◽  
António Pedro Souto ◽  
Paulo Flores ◽  
...  

An investigation on the dynamic modeling and analysis of spatial mechanisms with spherical clearance joints including friction is presented. For this purpose, the ball and the socket which compose a spherical joint are modeled as two individual colliding components. The normal contact-impact forces that develop at the spherical clearance joint are determined by using a continuous force model. A continuous analysis approach is used here with a Hertzian based contact force model, which includes a dissipative term representing the energy dissipation during the contact process. The pseudo-penetration that occurs between the potential contact points of the ball and the socket surface, as well as the indentation rate play a crucial role in the evaluation of the normal contact forces. In addition, several different friction force models based on the Coulomb’s law are revisited in this work. The friction models utilized here can accommodate the various friction regimens and phenomena that take place at the contact interface between the ball and the socket. Both the normal and tangential contact forces are evaluated and included into the systems’ dynamics equation of motion, developed under the framework of multibody systems formulations. A spatial four bar mechanism, which includes a spherical joint with clearance, is used as an application example to examine and quantify the effects of various friction force models, clearance sizes, and the friction coefficients.


Author(s):  
Maria Margarida Machado ◽  
Paulo Flores ◽  
Jorge Ambrósio

The aim of this work is to present an efficient methodology to deal with general 3D-contact problems. This approach embraces three steps: geometrical definition of 3D-surfaces; detection of the candidate contact points; evaluation of the contact forces. The 3D-contact surfaces are generated and represented by using parametric functions due to their simplicity and easiness to handle freeform shapes. This task is carried in preprocessing, performed preliminarily to the implementation of the multibody code. The preprocessing procedure can be condensed into four steps: a regular and representative surface collection of points is extracted from the 3D-parametric surface; for each point the tangent vectors to the u and v directions of the parametric surface and the normal vector are computed; the geometrical information on each point is saved in a lookup table, including the parametric point coordinates, the corresponding Cartesian coordinates and the Cartesian components of the normal, tangent and binormal vectors; the lookup table is rearranged such that the u-v mapping is converted into a 3D-matrix form. In the last step, the surface data is saved as a direct access file. Regarding the detection of the contact points, the relative distance between the candidate contact points are computed and used to check if the bodies are in contact. The actual contact points are selected as those that correspond to the maximum relative indentation. The contact forces are determined as functions of the indentation, impact velocity and geometric and material properties of the contacting surfaces. In general, lookup tables are used to reduce the computation time in dynamic simulations. However, the application of these schemes involves an increase of memory needs. Within the proposed approach, the amount of memory used is significantly reduced, as a result of a partial upload into memory of the lookup table. A slider-crank mechanism with a cup on the top of the slider and a marble ball is used as demonstrative example. A contact pair is considered between a cup and a marble ball, being the contact forces computed using a dissipative contact model.


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