13th World Congress in Mechanism and Machine Science, Guanajuato, Mxico, 19-25 June, 2011

A8_585

Contact Mechanics In A Roller Chain Drive Using A Multibody Approach

C. Pereira * ISEC Polytechnic Coimbra, Portugal J. Ambrsio IDMEC-IST Lisbon, Portugal A. Ramalho CEMUC-FCTUC Coimbra, Portugal

AbstractIn this work, a multibody methodology to address the kinematic and dynamic effects of roller chain drives is presented. The chain itself is modeled as a collection of rigid bodies, connected to each other by revolute clearance joints. Each clearance revolute joint, representing the connection between pair of links, is made up of the pin link/bushing link plus the bushing link/roller pairs, if the chain is a roller chain. The clearance joint approach is further extended to the roller/sprocket teeth surface contact pairs. The internal conformal contact and the external contact between these cylindrical geometries is described using a new analytical model that puts together the precision of the contact force evaluation with the numerical efficiency required. Furthermore, the problem of contact initialization and its coordination with the numerical integration procedures is taken into account by controlling the time step size of the numerical integration algorithm in the vicinity of the impact. This methodology is demonstrated through its application to the study of a bicycle roller-chain drive being the methodological assumptions discussed in the process. 1
Keywords: Cylindrical contact, Polygonal effect, Time step control

I. Introduction Due to the discrete nature of the chain links and the nontrivial geometry of the sprockets surface, the dynamics of roller chain drives is characterized by a complex behavior. The simultaneous occurrence of polygonal action and roller/sprocket impact is responsible not only for the large variations on the system velocities, giving rise to transverse and longitudinal vibrations on the chain spans but also for the meshing noise, which in turn are responsible for wear and premature chain fatigue life [1-5]. These undesirable phenomena motivated several researchers to investigate their influence on the dynamic behavior and vibration analysis of chain drive systems, particularly at higher operation speeds [1]. With intentional or unintentional dimensional variations, clearances invariably exist in all multibody mechanical systems [6-9], including roller chain drive mechanisms. To provide a better phenomenological understanding and complement existing theories on the relevant issues of chain drives and, thus, prove tools to improve their
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design, a thorough investigation of integrated models describing the full dynamics of the system, including the meshing clearance joints contact, are required. A multibody formulation, involving the contact between different bodies, is used to describe the interaction between the different elements in the chain drive system [10-11]. The chain drive mechanism is described as planar multibody mechanical systems with multiple revolute clearance joints [12]. Each clearance revolute joint, which represents a connection between a pair of links, is made up of the pin link/bushing link plus the bushing link/roller pairs if the chain is a roller chain instead of a bushing chain. The same methodology is applied to the roller/sprocket teeth surface contact pairs. The mathematical models that represent the contact conditions between the chain and the sprocket teeth and the contact between the pins, bushings and rollers have been proposed by [13]. This is a novel continuous contact force model that has a precision similar to the Johnson model [14] but that not only is valid for internal and external cylindrical contact for a very wide range of clearances but also does not require any iterative procedure to find the contact force as a function of the indentation [15]. The methodology proposed is demonstrated here through its application to the running dynamics of a small chain drive, used in bicycles. It is shown that the novel cylindrical continuous contact force model is precise and efficient in representing the meshing contact phenomena between the chain bushings and the sprocket teeth when pretension is used. If the pretension of the chain is null, i.e., in the case of non-tightened chains, the meshing phenomena is characterized by a succession of impacts, instead of continuous contact. II. Contact Mechanics in Chain Drive Mechanisms A chain drive, represented in Fig. 1(a), is composed of a collection of components that include the sprockets, chain and eventually a tensioner and delimiters of the chain vibrations. The chain, itself, is composed of inner and outer links, articulated through a pin/bushing hinge, and, eventually, rollers hinged on the inner links bushings. The chain drive is, therefore, a multibody system in which the hinges can be viewed as perfect kinematic joints or contact pairs and the sprockets, links and rollers can be represented as rigid or as flexible bodies. In this work all components of the chain are represented as rigid bodies and the hinges as contact
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candida@isec.pt jorge@dem.ist.utl.pt amilcar.ramalho@dem.uc.pt1