In several applications related to aerospace and helicopter components multi-layer metal rubber bearings are used. Due to rubber quasi-incompressibility and low shear modulus, very high axial stiffness can be achieved while combined with relatively low stiffness in lateral directions. Design and production of such components is a big engineering challenge, because of high complexity of their mechanical behaviur due to multitude of involved parts.

In this study, a non-linear analysis is performed to calculate the rigidity of the component in different directions as well as stress distribution in metal linings and the rubber layers.  To provide sufficient accuracy, huge finite element models have to be created ( 80000 to 100000 elements, which is currently a challenge for non-linear analysis), and therefore a domain decomposition technique is required. Moreover, due to inherent differences in stiffness of the involved parts, numerical condittionning is extreamly bad. We use the FETI domain decomposition method which was developed by ONERA in France and integrated in FEM Server in the framework of Esprit PARASOL project.