Abstract
We study a belt-pulley system as a conformal rolling contact problem in order to discuss the limitation of a belt creep theory. The creep theory is assumed that the belt thickness is relatively thin enough to be negligible the bending stiffness of the belt and the constitutive relation of the belt under tension is linear. Thus we examine the influence of the thickness and extensibility of the rubber belt on the contact force distribution over the drive pulley by using finite element analysis. In addition, we argue the limitation of the creep theory by comparing theoretical solution with them. As a result, it is shown that the initial stretch limits significantly the validity of the creep theory compared with the effective stretch and the belt thickness.
