Model suspension arm-rubber bushing contact

[genio78]

Hi friends,
has any of you ever modeled the contact among the suspension arm and the rubber bushing (silentblock)?
I have to model them through I-DEAS software.
Thanks

 

[GregLocock]

Interesting proposition. What are you trying to model? ie what do you hope to learn?

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[genio78]

Imagine you want to validate a suspension arm hot pressed model, an aluminum one, and obviuosly to check the maximum stress in the arm.
A point of view would be, and i have followed this way, non-investigate the contact between rubber and steel/aluminum, i.e. use rigid elements to link the inner surface of the seats of the rubber bushes to the geometrical nodes of the suspension, modeled as nodes and then grounded with node to ground elements with fitted stiffness. The same also for the ball joint seat.
Have you ever tried the same way?
A second one would instead take into account also the rubber bushes, but how to model it?

Cheers
genio78

 

[GregLocock]

OK, that sounds do-able. Why not just model the bush as a solid, and then the inner metal of the bush? It probably won't be very accurate, but the loads should get distributed fairly realistically. It is unlikely that you will get a failure in that part of the arm anyway, so small errors will be acceptae.

I really hate seeing rigids in FE models, they do strange, impossible, things.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[matt7]

I work in the suspension rubber industry and I would recommend Greg's idea. Take the projected area of the bush inner sleeve and distribute it to the arm. I have completed empirical testing similar to what you are trying to model and the projected area makes a very large difference in the stress distribution.