An ideal method for predicting the fatigue life of spherical thrust elastomeric bearings has not been reported, thus far. This paper aims to present a method for predicting the fatigue life of laminated rubber spherical thrust elastomeric bearings.
First, the mechanical properties of standard rubber samples were tested; the axial stiffness, cocking stiffness, torsional stiffness and fatigue life of several full-size spherical thrust elastomeric bearings were tested. Then, the stiffness results were calculated using the neo-Hookean, Mooney–Rivlin and Yoeh models. Using a modified Mooney–Rivlin constitutive model, this paper proposes an improved method for fatigue life prediction, which considers the laminated characteristics of a spherical thrust elastomeric bearing and loads of multiple multi-axle conditions.
The Mooney–Rivlin model could accurately describe the stiffness characteristics of the spherical thrust elastomeric bearings. A comparative analysis of experimental results shows that the model can effectively predict the life of a spherical thrust elastomeric bearing within its range of use and the prediction error is within 20%.
The fatigue parameters of elastomeric bearings under multiaxial loads were fitted and corrected using experimental data and an accurate and effective multiaxial fatigue-life prediction expression was obtained. Finally, the software was redeveloped to improve the flexibility and efficiency of modeling and calculation.
