Modeling of dynamic contact finite element method for damping buffer components mounted on viscoelastic suspensions

A 3D dynamic contact finite element method(FEM) model was established on the bassis of the characteristics including large deformation, serious nonlinearly, incompressibility, and so on, for damping buffers mounted on viscoelastic suspensions used in 300 kW crawler tractors. Through FEM computations and analyses, some important characteristics, such as the stress concentration regions, the distribution of temperature “hot spot”, their principal destruction ways and position, and so on, were obtained, and some improvement suggestions were made. It is found that their values are well consistent bewteen the model and tests by comparison. The methods adopted and results obtained in this paper may be helpful for the research and development of the high-performance viscoelastic suspensions.