Study of cam and finger follower

[jorisromero66]

Hi!

I am working on the contact between a cam and a finger follower (see the pictures attached).

I used Simulation Mechanical to perform a stress analysis (MES with non linear materials).

Now I would like to simulate the heat generated at the contact point due to frictionnal loss to obtain the temperature evolution of the different parts while moving.

I have the heat flux generated at the contact point from analytical results but I don't now how to implement it (as a boundary condition?) at the contact area of the cam and follower in motion.

If someone has any idea on how to proceed, feel free to share! 🙂

[AstroJohnPE · Accepted solution]

Hi,

There are only 10 types of loads in a transient heat transfer analysis , and only the three involving heat seem remotely appropriate in your case: heat source, internal heat generation, and joule heating.

Depending on how fancy you want to get, my suggestion is to split the contact surfaces into multiple surfaces (multiple surface numbers) and apply a "Heat source" to these surfaces. As you will see when you select the surface, the input is energy/time/area, such as W/m^2. Each surface would be assigned to a different load curve so that you can "turn the heat load on" (multiplier =1) and "off" (multiplier = 0) at the appropriate time as the surface comes into contact.

Another option would be to apply the time-weighted average heat to the entire perimeter. This may be reasonable since the part is rotating so rapidly (500 RPM). For example, X watts are generated on each rotation. So apply a constant load of (X watts)/(surface area) to the entire perimeter.

[jorisromero66]

Alright, thank you!

I am going to use the second option at first and get fancier if needed.

Joris