Design Criteria for Elastomeric Bearings

The contract with the Eustis Directorate, U.S. Army Air Mobility R & D Laboratory included the evaluation, development and selection of analytic and experimental techniques required for the design and/or evaluation of elastomeric bearings for rotor head applications. Axially laminated cylindrical (Type I), radially laminated cylindrical (Type II), and spherical (Type III) laminated bearings were considered. This paper reviews the major areas of development: (1) development and selection of experimental procedures for the determination of required design and analysis parameters; (2) evaluation and definition of predictive techniques for stability or buckling of laminated bearings; (3) development of procedures for predicting the service life of bearings; and (4) the products of this effort, which are a finite element computer code and a first edition of a design manual.