Optimal Stiffness for Flexible Connectors on A Mobile Offshore Base at Rough Sea States

This paper investigates a simplified method to determine the optimal stiffness of flexible connectors on a mobile offshore base(MOB) during the preliminary design stage. A three-module numerical model of an MOB was used as a case study. Numerous constraint forces and relative displacements for the connectors at rough sea states with different wave angles were utilized to determine the optimized stiffness of the flexible connectors. The range of optimal stiffnesses for the connectors was obtained based on the combination and intersection of the optimized stiffness results, and the implementation steps were elaborated in detail. The percentage reductions of the optimized and optimal stiffness of the flexible connector were determined to quantitatively evaluate the decreases of the constraint force and relative displacement of the connectors compared with those calculated by using the original range of the connector stiffnesses. The results indicate the accuracy and feasibility of this method for determining the optimal stiffness of the flexible connectors and demonstrate the rationality and practicability of the optimal stiffness results. The research ideas, calculation process, and solutions for the optimal stiffness of the flexible connectors of an MOB in this paper can provide valuable technical support for the design of the connectors in similar semisubmersible floating structures.

Improved Stiffness Modeling for An Exechon‑Like Parallel Kinematic Machine(PKM)and Its Application

Hole drilling or contour milling for the large and complex workpieces such as automobile panels and aircraft fuselages makes a high combined demand on machining accuracy,stiffness and workspace of machining equipment.Therefore,a 5-DOF(degrees of freedom)parallel kinematic machine(PKM)with redundant constraints is proposed.Based on the kinematics analysis of the parallel mechanism using intermediate variables,the kinematics problems of the PKM are solved through equivalent kinematics model.The structural stiffness matrix method is adopted to model the stiffness of the parallel mechanism of the PKM,where the stiffness of each joint and branch component is obtained by stiffness formula and finite element analysis.And the stiffness model of the parallel mechanism is improved by correction coefficient matrix,each element of which is constructed as a polynomial function of three independent end variables of the parallel mechanism.The terminal stiffness matrices obtained by simulation result are used to determine the coefficients of polynomial function by least square fitting to describe the correction coefficient over the workspace of the parallel mechanism quantitatively.The experiment results prove that the modification method can greatly improve the stiffness model of the parallel mechanism.To enhance the machining accuracy of the PKM,the proposed kinematics model and the improved stiffness model are utilized to optimize the working stiffness of parallel machine by searching the best relative position of parallel machine and workpiece.A plate workpiece taken as example is examined in the case study section,which demonstrates the effectiveness of optimization method.

Torsional stiffness modeling and optimization of the rubber torsion bushing for a light tracked vehicle

Taking the rubber torsion bushing of a certain type of all-terrain tracked vehicle as the research object,a theoretical model of torsional stiffness was proposed according to the non-linear characteristics of rubber components and structural feature of the suspension. Simulations were carried out under different working conditions to obtain root mean square of vertical weighted acceleration as the evaluation index for ride performance of the all-terrain tracked vehicle,with a dynamics model of the whole vehicle based on the theoretical model of the torsional stiffness and standard road roughness as excitation input. Response surface method was used to establish the parametric optimization model of the torsional stiffness. The evaluation index showed that ride performance of the vehicle with optimized torsional stiffness model of suspension was improved compared with previous model fromexperiment. The torsional stiffness model of rubber bushing provided a theoretical basis for the design of the rubber torsion bushing in light tracked vehicles.

A Smooth Bidirectional Evolutionary Structural Optimization of Vibrational Structures for Natural Frequency and Dynamic Compliance

A smooth bidirectional evolutionary structural optimization(SBESO),as a bidirectional version of SESO is proposed to solve the topological optimization of vibrating continuum structures for natural frequencies and dynamic compliance under the transient load.A weighted function is introduced to regulate the mass and stiffness matrix of an element,which has the inefficient element gradually removed from the design domain as if it were undergoing damage.Aiming at maximizing the natural frequency of a structure,the frequency optimization formulation is proposed using the SBESO technique.The effects of various weight functions including constant,linear and sine functions on structural optimization are compared.With the equivalent static load(ESL)method,the dynamic stiffness optimization of a structure is formulated by the SBESO technique.Numerical examples show that compared with the classic BESO method,the SBESO method can efficiently suppress the excessive element deletion by adjusting the element deletion rate and weight function.It is also found that the proposed SBESO technique can obtain an efficient configuration and smooth boundary and demonstrate the advantages over the classic BESO technique.

Base placement optimization of a mobile hybrid machining robot by stiffness analysis considering reachability and nonsingularity constraints

The mobile hybrid machining robot has a very bright application prospect in the field of high-efficiency and high-precision machining of large aerospace structures.However,an inappropriate base placement may make the robot encounter a singular configuration,or even fail to complete the entire machining task due to unreachability.In addition to considering the two constraints of reachability and non-singularity,this paper also optimizes the robot base placement with stiffness as the goal to improve the machining quality.First of all,starting from the structure of the robot,the reachability and nonsingularity constraints are transformed into a simple geometric constraint imposed on the base placement:feasible base placement area.Then,genetic algorithm is used to search for the base placement with near optimal stiffness(near optimal base placement for short)in the feasible base placement area.Finally,multiple controlled experiments were carried out by taking the milling of a protuberance on the spacecraft cabin as an example.It is found that the calculated optimal base placement meets all the constraints and that the machining quality was indeed improved.In addition,compared with simple genetic algorithm,it is proved that the feasible base placement area method can shorten the running time of the whole program.