Frictional behavior of flat belt drives with different friction models

Abstract Flat belt drives are widely used machine elements based on a frictional connection between belt and pulley. For their design and the analysis of their dynamic behavior, numerical methods are increasingly employed, which require a mathematical description of the frictional contact. Inaccurate modeling of the friction forces can significantly affect the predicted belt behavior and may, for example, distort wear analyses or the slip behavior of the belt. This paper investigates the influence of a static regularization and the dynamic FrD2 friction model on the friction force distribution within the belt-pulley contact. A lumped-mass belt model is employed as the simulation framework to compare both friction models under identical conditions. The static friction model approximates stiction through slow creep, whereas the FrD2 model can reproduce stiction without sliding. The results show that the FrD2 model predicts a friction force evolution that agrees well with the theoretical descriptions by Euler-Eytelwein and Grashof.