Physics-based Modeling and Simulation for Motional Cable Harness Design

The design work of motional cable in products is vital due to the difficulty in estimating the potential issues in current researches.In this paper,a physics-based modeling and simulation method for the motional cable harness design is presented.The model,based on continuum mechanics,is established by analyzing the force of microelement in equilibrium.During the analysis procedure,three coordinate systems：inertial,Frenet and main-axis coordinate systems are used.By variable substitution and dimensionless processing,the equation set is discretized by differential quadrature method and subsequently becomes an overdetermined nonlinear equation set with boundary conditions solved by Levenberg-Marquardt method.With the profile of motional cable harness obtained from the integral of arithmetic solution,a motion simulation system based on＂path＂and＂profile＂as well as the experimental equipments is built.Using the same parameters as input for the simulation and the real cable harness correspondingly,the issue in designing,such as collision,can be easily found by the simulation system.This research obtains a better result which has no potential collisions by redesign,and the proposed method can be used as an accurate and efficient way in motional cable harness design work.

Dynamic Simulation and Disturbance Torque Analyzing of Motional Cable Harness Based on Kirchhoff Rod Model

The motional payloads on stabilized platform must be linked by some cable harnesses with other immobile apparatus.During the operation of stabilized platform,these cable harnesses can create spring disturbance torque which is exerted on the stabilized platform and then reduce the stabilizing precision.None of current studies can deal with the spring disturbance torque problem.To analyze the spring disturbance toque,a dynamic thin rod model is presented for simulating the motional cable harness which is based on the Kirchhoff rod theorem and can consider the geometrically non-linear effects.The internal bending and torsion restoring torques are simulated and then a predictive analysis of the disturbance torque can be performed in motional cable routing design.This model is solved with differential quadrature method（DQM）.By using zeros of the Chebyshev polynomial as the grid points,the arc-coordinate is discretized to obtain a set of ordinary differential equations in time domain which is solved by implied method to obtain the profile and internal force of cable harness.The accuracy of this model is validated by comparing the simulation results and the experiment results（both the spring force and the deformed profile of the motional cable harness）.In the experiment,a special optical measuring instrument based on binocular vision is developed.The comparison of experimental and simulated results shows that the simulation model can represent the real motional cable harness well,and the spring disturbance force simulation results are precise enough for spring disturbance torque analysis.This study will be helpful to obtain an optimized motional cable harness layout design with small spring disturbance torque.

Experimental validation method of elastic thin rod model for simulating the motional cable harness

To analyze the spring disturbance torque caused by motionai cable harness in a stabilized platform, the Kirchhoff theory based cable harness model has been previously developed to dynamically simulate the motional cable harness. In this paper, this model was validated by comparing the simulation results with the experiment results （ both the spring force and the deformed profile of the motional cable harness）. In the experiment, a special optical measuring instrument based on binocular vision was developed and the motion and deformation of cable harness were measured. A simpli- fied stabilized platform system was constructed, and the absolute value of spring disturbance force during the motion of this simplified frame was obtained by using a force gauge （0. 02 N precision）. The physical parameters of experimental specimen were also measured. The experimental and simulated results showed good agreement. These results should be useful for better motional cable harness layout design and reliable evaluation of the spring disturbance torque.