Vibration Analysis for Flexible Beam Structures with Cantilever-Hertzian Contact Boundary Conditions

The flexible beam is a very suitable solution with detachable electrical contacts for many applications such as electromechanical relays and connectors. However, they are prone to exhibit instantaneous interruption fault under mechanical vibration environments. In this paper, the vibration modes of a flexible beam structure with cantilever-Hertzian contact boundary conditions is analyzed by using commercial ANSYS Workbench software. The highlight of this method is the initial deformation of beam together with the Hertzian contact pressure are considered simultaneously. The nonlinear behaviors of fundamental frequency dependent on the contact force and length of beams are interpreted explicitly. Furthermore, based on the frequency domain analysis principle, the forced vibration simulation method for flexible beam structures is presented with the corrected damping coefficient. Finally, the variations in contact resistance of flexible beam structures under the mechanical vibration environment is measured and statistically analyzed. The experiment results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed simulation method.