Modeling and experimental research on a coordinated contact between a shaft and hole

In this study, the traditional contact models mainly focus on the contact between a shaft and an infinite plane with a hole, usually ignoring the effect of the hole's wall thickness on the contact characteristics. A coordinated contact model is established on the basis of the geometric constraint condition and the Winkler elastic foundation model, given that the contact characteristics of the shaft and the hole are influenced by the hole's wall thickness. The model is built along a normal direction of contact points. A model analysis shows that the contact force and stiffness are greatly affected by clearance and wall thickness of the hole. The contact experiments based on the image method show that the contact stiffness of the shaft-hole nonlinearly increases following the contact depth increase. In addition, the contact model has good consistency with the test data compared with the other models. The model can more accurately describe the contact characteristics of the shaft and the hole than the previous models, thereby providing a theoretical basis for the analysis of the dynamic characteristics of mechanism with clearance.