FEM Analysis of Rubber Cover for Automotive Parts

FEM에 의한 자동차부품용 고무커버에 관한 해석

Durability of rubber dust cover in the ball joint for automotive suspension parts were analyzed by FEM and compared with experimental data. Upper open area of ball joint is sealed by dust cover for preventing outflow of the lubricating oil and intrusion of send, dust, water, etc. This rubber cover undergoes repeated loadings such as tension and compression while the car is running. Analysis about rubber material needs to consider every kinds of nonlinearities arise in finite element analysis, which are geometric nonlinearity due to large displacement and small strain, materially nonlinearity and nonlinear boundary condition such as contact. So in the study, the deformation behavior of dust cover was analysed by using the commercial finite element program MARC. This program could solve these kinds of nonlinear analysis accurately. Finite element model of dust cover is considered as 3-dimensional half model based on 2-dimensional axisymmetric model. Material property of rubber was modeled by Ogden model and input data for calculation takes form uniaxial tension test of rubber specimen, The final object of the study is obtaining the design specification of dust covers and the result of analysis should be a useful data to design of rubber