Compression stiffness of circular bearings of laminated elastic material interleaving with flexible reinforcements

The compression stiffness of a circular bearing that consists of laminated elastic layers interleaving with flexible reinforcements is derived in closed form. The effect of bulk compressibility in the elastic layer and the effect of boundary condition at the ends of the bearing are considered. The stiffness of the bearing with monotonic deformation is derived first. Then, the bearings with both ends being free from shear force and the bearings with both ends being bonded to rigid plates are studied. The theoretical solutions to the compression stiffness of the bearings are extremely close to the results obtained by the finite element method, which proves that the displacement assumptions utilized in the theoretical derivation are reasonable.