A new friction model for the slide guide in elevator systems: Experimental and theoretical investigations

In the design and manufacture of elevator systems, the slide guide in elevators moves in contact against the guide rail. This kind of surface contact exhibits a highly non-linear hysteretic friction behaviour, which hampers the riding quality of the elevator systems to a great extent. First, this paper presents an experimental investigation on this type of phenomenon through the measurement of contact friction force between the interface of the slide guide and the rail under different combinations of input parameters. The experiment clearly shows various types of frictional behaviour, including presliding/gross-sliding regimes, the transition behaviour between them, friction overshoot, time lag, velocity (weakening and strengthening) dependence, etc. In addition, it is found that for different materials in contact, lubrication conditions and friction duration have strong impacts on the evaluation of their friction characteristics. Based on the observations of this test, an improved friction model derived from the Bouc—Wen model is then proposed and compared with other friction models. The Bouc—Wen model is improved by adding elements considering the velocity dependence and friction overshoot. The numerical simulations show that the proposed model can capture the behaviour found in the experiments, agrees with the experimental data reasonably well, and may be used for the dynamical analysis of the elevator systems.