On the applicability of static modes switching in gear contact applications

Abstract

Contact modeling is an active research area in the field of multibody dynamics. Despite the important research effort of the last decades, two main challenging issues, namely accuracy and speed, are far from being jointly solved. One main issue remains the current lack of model order reduction schemes capable of efficiently treat systems where multiple, a priori unknown, input-output locations are present. This work discusses how a methodology named static modes switching can be extended for its use in gear contact simulation. The method proposes an on line strategy for the selection of residual attachment modes for accurate local deformation prediction. The applicability of the method is discussed by means of several numerical experiments. The result is an indication that the static modes switching underlying idea can be applied also in case of impulsive phenomena like gear impacts. Moreover, a numerical study on penalty factor values and number of eigenmodes and residual attachment modes shows an interesting relation between these three quantities, the dynamic behavior of the system and the solution accuracy. Finally, some simulations are performed to compare the adopted model order reduction strategy with a reference non-linear finite element simulation.

A free‐interface component mode synthesis of moving contact multibodies and its application to gear contacts

“…The dynamically adjusted static modes make the interface DOFs minimal at a given moment. This approach has also been applied to gear meshing simulations for high efficiency 27,28 . However, the transition of the mode set leads to numerically unsmooth results.…”

“…This approach has also been applied to gear meshing simulations for high efficiency. 27,28 However, the transition of the mode set leads to numerically unsmooth results. An integration scheme with high-frequency numerical damping should be adopted to overcome artificial discontinuities.…”

“…On the other hand, including all static modes of moving contact interfaces introduces too many interface DOFs. 15,25 The SMS method, [26][27][28] the ALE gear method, 34,35 and the PMOR method 36,37 reduce a certain number of interface DOFs and maintain accuracy in local contact areas. However, the interface DOFs lead to the increment of computational scale and jeopardize efficiency.…”

A ‘nodeless’ dual superelement formulation for structural and multibody dynamics application to reduction of contact problems

“…The problem of properly choosing the modal content of the superelement remains, specially the static modes injected in the representation, so as to properly describe the interaction with adjacent elements with a minimum of DOFs in the system. The problem becomes particularly acute when attempting to apply the modal reduction concept to systems such as gears where intermittent unilateral contact occurs between constantly changing pairs of nodes .…”

“…In , it was proposed to select a limited set of attachment modes associated to nodes located in the contact regions, while in , the concept of dynamic switching between a large set of modes during the simulation was introduced. Mode switching raises however the question of spurious transients in the response when changing the modal basis during the simulation.…”