Wear Prediction of Clearance Revolute Joints Using Winkler Surface Model

Wear of clearance revolute joints is commonly coupled with mechanical dynamics. Winkler surface model is utilized to calculate joints reaction and contact pressure rather than Hertz model and finite element method (FEM) because Hertz model is not suitable for conformal contact. And FEM leads to the high computational cost. An analysis scheme of wear coupling with mechanical dynamics is established and validated by an exemplary crank slider mechanism with one clearance joint. Results show that wear prediction based Winkler's model can provide an acceptable accurate wear results compared with FEM although the later produces more accurate prediction. The proposed method is also an efficient tool for tribological design of mechanism with clearance joints.