Contact forces and transmission efficiency of an automotive ball joint constitute important design goals of an automotive drive shaft system, which affect transmission performances of the ball joint and the drive shaft system. In order to analyze contact forces and transmission efficiency more comprehensively, a multi-body dynamic model for calculating contact forces and transmission efficiency of a ball joint is established. The effectiveness of the multi-body dynamic model is validated through experiments of contact forces and transmission efficiency of a ball joint. Based on the developed multi-body dynamic model, influences of the articulation angle, the ball number and the track offset on contact forces between the ball and the cage, and between the ball and the track are analyzed. To enhance the analysis and optimization efficiency of transmission efficiency, a proxy model for the transmission efficiency loss late is established on the basic of the multi-body dynamic model. Influences of the ball radius, the articulation angle, the friction coefficient, the central angle of the cross section of the cage rib, and the contact stiffness and the force exponent of contact pairs on the transmission efficiency loss late are analyzed. Using Sobol’ global sensitivity analysis method, the sensitivity of the proxy model is analyzed and influences of various factors on the transmission efficiency loss late are further determined. According to sensitivity analysis results, the articulation angle, the friction coefficient and the force exponent are selected as design parameters, and the transmission efficiency loss late is optimized through a numerical example.

中文翻译：

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汽车球窝接头接触力及传动效率分析与优化

汽车球窝接头的接触力和传动效率是汽车传动轴系统的重要设计目标，影响球窝接头和传动轴系统的传动性能。为了更全面地分析接触力和传动效率，建立了计算球窝关节接触力和传动效率的多体动力学模型。通过球关节接触力和传递效率的实验验证了多体动力学模型的有效性。基于建立的多体动力学模型，分析了关节角度、球数和轨道偏移对球与保持架、球与轨道接触力的影响。为提高传输效率的分析和优化效率，在多体动力学模型的基础上，建立了传输效率后期损失的代理模型。分析了滚珠半径、铰接角、摩擦系数、保持架肋横截面中心角、接触刚度和接触副力指数对传动效率后期损失的影响。利用Sobol的全局灵敏度分析方法，对代理模型的灵敏度进行了分析，进一步确定了各因素对传输效率后期损失的影响。根据灵敏度分析结果，选取铰接角、摩擦系数和力指数作为设计参数，