Title: Numerical simulation of a model of vibrations with joint clearance

Authors: Yves Dumont, Laetitia Paoli

Addresses: IREMIA, Departement de Mathematiques, Universite de la Reunion, 15 avenue Rene Cassin, 97715 Saint-Denis Messag. 9, France. ' LaMUSE, Departement de Mathematiques, Universite de Saint-Etienne, 23 rue Paul Michelon, 42023 Saint-Etienne Cedex 2, France

Abstract: Motivated by the problem of vibrations due to joint clearance between components in complex mechanical systems, we study in this paper the motion of a beam between rigid obstacles. We assume that the material is elastic and the motion is planar. The contact is described with a non-penetration condition, which leads to a model of dynamics with unilateral constraints. We propose a family of fully discretised approximations and their convergence is established. Moreover we present some examples of implementation using either finite element or spline space discretisation.

Keywords: convergence; elastic beam; Signorini conditions; time discretisation; space discretisation; vibrations; unilateral constraints; beam motion; dynamic modelling; dynamics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2008.021884

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2008 Vol.33 No.1, pp.41 - 53

Published online: 08 Dec 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article