Wear Analysis of Two Revolute Joints With Clearance in Multibody Systems

The wear of multiple joints with clearance is one of the main impacts on the life of mechanical systems while very limited study has been done on this subject. To be different with many existed researches focused on the dynamic analysis of multibody systems with multiple clearance joints, the wear of two revolute joints with clearance in multibody systems is analyzed in this paper by coupling dynamics with tribology. Based on a planar slider crank mechanism with two clearance joints, it is observed that the clearance sizes nonlinearly influence the wear depths of the two joints with clearance. Meanwhile, an appropriate relationship between the two joints' clearance sizes can significantly decrease the wear of the joints, which would greatly improve the system life. Both the independent and interactive influences of the two joints with clearances on the wear are investigated in this paper. The relation equations of the two clearances obtained in this work will significantly decrease the wear of the two clearance joints.