Purpose

An ideal method for predicting the fatigue life of spherical thrust elastomeric bearings has not been reported, thus far. This paper aims to present a method for predicting the fatigue life of laminated rubber spherical thrust elastomeric bearings.

Design/methodology/approach

First, the mechanical properties of standard rubber samples were tested; the axial stiffness, cocking stiffness, torsional stiffness and fatigue life of several full-size spherical thrust elastomeric bearings were tested. Then, the stiffness results were calculated using the neo-Hookean, Mooney–Rivlin and Yoeh models. Using a modified Mooney–Rivlin constitutive model, this paper proposes an improved method for fatigue life prediction, which considers the laminated characteristics of a spherical thrust elastomeric bearing and loads of multiple multi-axle conditions.

Findings

The Mooney–Rivlin model could accurately describe the stiffness characteristics of the spherical thrust elastomeric bearings. A comparative analysis of experimental results shows that the model can effectively predict the life of a spherical thrust elastomeric bearing within its range of use and the prediction error is within 20%.

Originality/value

The fatigue parameters of elastomeric bearings under multiaxial loads were fitted and corrected using experimental data and an accurate and effective multiaxial fatigue-life prediction expression was obtained. Finally, the software was redeveloped to improve the flexibility and efficiency of modeling and calculation.

中文翻译：

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一种改进的能量预测方法预测多轴载荷作用下叠层橡胶合金球面推力弹性轴承疲劳寿命

目的

到目前为止，还没有报道预测球面推力弹性轴承疲劳寿命的理想方法。本文旨在提出一种预测叠层橡胶球面推力弹性轴承疲劳寿命的方法。

设计/方法/方法

首先，测试标准橡胶样品的力学性能；测试了几种全尺寸球面推力弹性轴承的轴向刚度、翘起刚度、扭转刚度和疲劳寿命。然后，使用 neo-Hookean、Mooney-Rivlin 和 Yoeh 模型计算刚度结果。本文使用改进的 Mooney-Rivlin 本构模型，提出了一种改进的疲劳寿命预测方法，该方法考虑了球面推力弹性轴承的分层特性和多轴条件下的载荷。

发现

Mooney-Rivlin 模型可以准确地描述球面推力弹性轴承的刚度特性。实验结果对比分析表明，该模型能有效预测球面推力弹性轴承在其使用范围内的寿命，预测误差在20%以内。

原创性/价值

利用实验数据对弹性轴承在多轴载荷下的疲劳参数进行拟合和修正，得到了准确有效的多轴疲劳寿命预测表达式。最后，对软件进行了重新开发，以提高建模和计算的灵活性和效率。