Dynamic behavior of mechanisms with planar and spatial clearance joints

Abstract

This study presents a comparative analysis on the dynamic response of mechanisms that include planar and spatial joints with clearance. For that, the fundamental kinematic and dynamic aspects relate to the modeling and simulating joints with dry clearance are analyzed. A compliant approach is used to solve the contact problem at the clearance joints, in which the contact forces are dependent on the local pseudo-penetration and on the contact kinematics. The academic slidercrank mechanism is utilized, as a demonstrative example of application, in order to compare both the planar and spatial formulation for clearance joints and to show the similarities to highlight the differences of such approaches. The overall results presented show that the incorporation of clearance joints in mechanisms significantly influences their response and drastically increases the peaks in reaction moments at the joints. Moreover, the system’s response clearly tends to be nonlinear when a clearance joint was included.