Analysis of stiffness of elastic couplings with packages of cylindrical spring sleeves

Abstract

The drives of various machine units that transmit energy from one part of the machine to another use couplings as connecting elements, with permanent couplings, including elastic compensating ones with metal elements, being mostly used. The metal elastic elements in the latter may be in the form of packages of spring sleeves. Their important characteristic is torsional stiffness. The paper analyses the influence of the main dimensions of spring sleeves on the torsional rigidity of the coupling. The study was carried out numerically by the finite element method using the ANSYS R17.0 Academic software package on the coupling model in which the spring sleeve package is replaced by one sleeve with a thickness equal to the thickness of the sleeve package. The analysis provides a rationale for the calculation model, using which the analytical dependence of the torsional stiffness of the coupling on its main dimensions was obtained - the position of the center of the package relative to the half-couplings, the dimensions of the package. Analysis of the analytical dependence made it possible to obtain fairly simple relationships that are convenient for calculating the torsional stiffness of the coupling.