Research on Stiffness Measurement of Spring Tubes Based on Three-Dimensional Conformal Contacts Model

A contact model and corresponding numerical method are proposed in this paper to study the influences of contact deformations on stiffness measuring precision of spring tubes. Firstly, measuring principle and the force analysis are presented. Then, the contact model is set up by simplifying the contact force and considering the real contact condition. Lastly, a numerical method is developed to solve the contact equation, and quantizing relationships between measurement errors and the contact deformation are derived subsequently. It's proved by simulation and tests that the contact model is more accurate than Herzian contact theory and the contact deformation can make stiffness values lower than its true ones