An Enhanced Circumferential Winkler Contact Force Model for Cylindrical Clearance Joints

In deployable space structures, the clearance size of joints is small, and the contact between the journal and bearing should sometimes be treated as a conformal contact, resulting in the imprecision of the contact force models in evaluating contact forces. This study proposes an enhanced hybrid theoretical and numerical contact force model to calculate the clearance joints' contact force. Firstly, a basic formula of a dimensionless contact force is proposed, and an optimized surrogate function of the shape correction coefficient is obtained using finite element method (FEM) and response surface method (RSM). Then, the proposed model is validated by comparing it with various contact force models. Finally, this paper discussed the applicability of the proposed model in detail. These results indicate that the dimensionless expression of the proposed model is reasonable and can reasonably describe the relationship between contact force and penetration depth. The proposed model has been proven to have an excellent correlation with FEM and a minor relative error. The application scope of the proposed model is unlimited to the clearance size and the joint size. The proposed model provides a foundation for accurate impact models and is vital for the structural dynamic problems of high-precision space structures.