Analysis of Elastic Machinery With Clearances

Abstract

Previous work on the analysis of elastic link mechanisms has been enlarged upon so as to include the effect of intermittent separation and impact between members. A cam-driven valve train is used as an example to demonstrate the methods for analyzing an elastic machine with clearances. Also demonstrated is a method for bookkeeping, or keeping track of the various configurations which the machine can assume due to the clearances. The methods presented here are sufficiently general to be applied to a variety of machinery; however, a cam-driven valve train was selected as an example because (1) it could be represented by a relatively simple elastic model, thus reducing the size of the computer program, and (2) an essentially constant geometry could be assumed, thus saving considerable computational time.