FEA Boundary conditions on a Snowboard Binding

[matios309]

Hello everyone.

Im working on a project related to snowboard and its binding. I have created a model which can be seen below. Im analysing the behaviour while a snowboarder is riding on his heels and toes (force applied to the back or front of the binding). Thanks to the red and blue elements, whole binding can slightly rotate depending where we put our force. For instance when driving on heels, left green element will squize a bit). The whole point of that mechanism is that is enables a instant force transfer to the edge of a snowboard, allowing for better control. I am trying to show that on my analysis.

What boundary conditions and where should be applied to the model? I was thinking about applying Fixed Support on the bottom surface of snowboard, forces depending on analysed driving case, cylindical support on a blue pin and remote displacement on blue and red elements (displacement x y z=0 and free rotations). Also, Frictional contact for elements that are in contact with a snowboard. What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks in advance!

 

[FEA way]

How is that binding mounted to the snowboard ? Via those 3 small holes in the front ? You will need to approximate them somehow (e.g. using beam elements connected to the solid parts via rigid "spider" elements). If you keep the solid representations of the blue pins then contact between them and the parts they connect should be sufficient. So (apart from fixing the bottom of the snowboard) you would be left only with the red part to which the shoe is attached, I assume. There you can apply remote displacement to prescribe load.

 

[matios309]

This model is a simplification so far, but yeah, the binding is mounted via those 3 holes and there is also a disk in the centre where you will have more holes to connect with a snowboard (will model later). What I was thinking is applying a Revolute Joint to the pin area, so that the whole binding can rotate around it. What are your thoughts on that? Also, there is a quick explanation how the mechanism works Bindings Mechanism YouTube