A Viscoelastic Model for an Automotive Transmission Rubber Mount

An automotive transmission (TM) rubber mount is a device that is used in automotive systems to cushion the loads transmitted from the vehicle body structure. A TM rubber mount is used to support the engine in the vertical direction. However, the dynamic behavior of loaded rubber mount is not yet known to a reasonable degree of accuracy. The relationship between the force applied to a TM rubber mount and the resulting deformation exhibits features of viscoelasticity. Therefore, in this study, viscoelastic properties were measured during ramp-toconstant displacement control tests. A force-displacement relationship for a TM rubber mount is important for multi-body dynamic numerical simulations. Hence, an explicit force-displacement relationship was developed and expressed in terms of a force relaxation function. A method that can be used to determine the force-displacement relationship from experimental data for a TM rubber mount was also developed. Solutions were obtained and the results were compared with experimentally measured force-displacement behavior. The predictions of the proposed forcedisplacement relationship were in very good agreement with the experimental results.