| Modern light weight vehicles generate large noise levels, that may need bulky classical rubber mounts to suppress. Hydroelastic mounts can significantly reduce the vibration level of current production automobiles without weight penalty. However, the highly nonlinear behavior of hydroelastic mounts has not been established yet and its use is, therefore, limited to trial and error design methods.;This study discusses the implementation of nonlinear finite element simulation of hydroelastic mounts using the ANSYS finite element code. Fluid elements are limited to linear analysis and therefore are incompatible with the nonlinear hyperelastic elements. A method is proposed to simulate the fluid as an equivalent rubber element by comparing their linear static deflections and small displacement dynamic responses. Thus, the equivalent properties of the hyperelastic elements have been defined for the further nonlinear analysis. A parametric study is done for mounts with different geometric configurations and different durometer hardness of rubber material. |
